Twitter: 10K tweets per second in final minutes of Super Bowl XLVI

Twitter averaged 10,000 tweets per second during the final three minutes of Sunday's Super Bowl XLVI as the New York Giants edged the New England Patriots 21-17, scoring the game-winning touchdown with 57 seconds left on the clock.

Twitter activity reached its peak at the conclusion of the game, when tweets averaged a record-breaking 12,233 per second. Madonna's halftime performance was next at 10,245 tweets per second. Twitter adds that the Madonna spectacle averaged 8,000 tweets per seconds for a five-minute period.

Twitter traffic reached an all-time high in December 2011 when filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki's animated classic Castle in the Sky aired on Japanese television, incorporating an interactive social spelling component that drove 25,088 tweets per second. In August 2011, news of pop icon Beyoncé's pregnancy (announced during the annual MTV Video Music Awards telecast) fueled traffic to a then-record 8,868 per second, beating a zenith reached weeks earlier when Japan rallied twice to defeat the United States in the Women's World Cup soccer final. Twitter averaged 7,196 tweets per second as the match drew to its close.

Twitter now boasts more than 100 million active users worldwide, 55 percent of whom are active on mobile devices. According to the Pew Internet Center, 13 percent of adult Americans who go online are on Twitter--by comparison, more than 50 percent use rival social network Facebook.

For more:
- read this Telegraph article

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