Twitter has confirmed that on the night of Sunday, May 1, 2011, when the U.S. government announced that it had succeeded in killing Osama bin Laden, the microblogging site experienced a record rate of sustained tweets. Between 10:45 and 12:30 am ET, there was an average of 3,440 tweets per second (TPS).
At 11 pm ET, 15 minutes after the major news outlets confirmed Bin Laden’s death, there were 5,106 TPS. At 11:45 pm ET, when President Obama wrapped up his address to the nation, there were 5,008 TPS.
Neither peak bested the all-time record of 6,939 TPS, set four seconds past midnight on New Year’s Day in Japan.
Throughout Obama’s entire speech, the average TPS was 3,400.
For me, as with many others, Twitter proved to be the first place to hear of Osama’s death. While this will surely reignite arguments over whether a social site, especially one that is fast-paced and real-time like Twitter, is a viable place to discover breaking news, the simple fact remains that it has already fulfilled that role. Instances like this, in my opinion, far outweigh the negative effects of misleading rumors and fake news bits that so often flood Twitter trending topics.
Speaking of trending topics, #osama remains firmly planted at the top, a place it took over last night. Several other related trends are helping to dominate the list: #obl (short for Osama bin Laden), Saddam Hussein (the last major US target), Situation Room (the 24/7 conference room at the White House for dealing with crises around the world), Navy Seals (who carried out the attack on Osama’s compound) and Abbottabad (the city in which the attack took place).
Now I just can’t wait to see what the TPS record will be when the President announces that terrorism has been vanquished, the war has ended and peace will reign forever. (I wish I wasn’t joking.)
