Google Inc terminated inviting users to join its new social networking service just 48 hours after the official launch.

Google Senior Vice President of Engineering Vic Gundotra said the company had "shut down invite mechanism" for the Google+ service for the night, in a note he posted on Google+ on Wednesday evening.

"Insane demand. We need to do this carefully, and in a controlled way," Gundotra wrote.

On Tuesday Google announced the service Google+ as another effort to dethrone Facebook from its crown position in the social media market.

A Google spokeswoman declined to say whether Google had resumed inviting people to join Google+ on Thursday or to specify what caused the suspension of invitations.