Thanks to the flurry of web traffic born of the recent major sporting events that have captivated the world’s attention, Twitter has seen an explosion in the number of “tweets” logged on a daily basis.
As a result of the hype surrounding both the World Cup and the NBA Finals, Twitter quickly set a new record for most tweets posted per second – a record that wouldn’t stand for long until it was promptly shattered yet again.
On an average day, users collectively tweet about 65 million times – that amounts to roughly 750 messages per second. But in the moments immediately following Japan’s big score against Cameroon, Twitter was the place to which soccer fans turned to post a staggering 2,940 posts per second.
Incredibly, that overwhelming statistic was outdone last Thursday immediately following the Los Angeles Lakers’ hard fought victory against the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals. For that occasion, tweets were coming at a lightning pace of 3,085 posts per second.
The trend of exploding tweets, however, had already begun long before the NBA Finals and the World Cup. According to comScore, Twitter.com saw better than 90 million unique visitors in May. That represents an increase from 83 million in April and only 37 million in May of 2009.
