Twitter, Google Use Soars After Osama Bin Laden Death
The star of last night's media coverage surrounding the death of Osama bin Laden was Twitter, as users of the popular social networking site not only broke the story but kept the world up-to-date with the latest news.
Twitter traffic drew in more than 4,000 tweets per second at the beginning and end of President Obama's speech last night announcing the death of the al-Qaida leader, according to a Twitter spokesperson. The site offered speculation on the news well before the president spoke.
In fact, a computer programmer in Abbottabad, Pakistan, an upscale retirement community where bin Laden was staying, tweeted that he heard commotion in the area and then unintentionally live-tweeted the events that would ultimately lead to the downfall of bin Laden.
"Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event)," the tweet said.
The number of tweets on the site last night was immense, but not a record. In fact, there were 6, 939 tweets per minute on New Year's Eve, beating the former record of 3,283 tweets when Japan beat Denmark in the World Cup last year.
The site has since been experiencing problems due most likely to large traffic flows.
The news has also been dominating Google search all morning, with the top 20 search terms all pertaining to the death of bin Laden.
