May 12, 2011 04:33
Yesterday, Osama Bin Laden’s demise resulted in a major spike in internet traffic, as people rushed to news sites for latest news & information on the event.
Akamai’s Net Usage Index, a website that monitors global news consumption, registered 4.1 million page views from 11:30p.m ET Sunday (USA) till the time President Obama made the announcement on national television.
Akamai, which is primarily a news specific service, noted 28% increase in North American and 24% increase in international online news consumption compared to the previous date. On a similar note, Yahoo.com, the 2nd largest search engine, reported that searches for “Osama Bin Laden” spiked 98,550% on Sunday evening, compared to Saturday, while searches for “September 11th” and “Pakistan Map” jumped 1,009% and 2,594% respectively.
Social media sites, which weren’t even around at the time of the 9/11 attacks also recorded a huge surge in activity. Twitter for instance reported 4,000 tweets per second around the time of Obama’s speech; approximately matching the number of Tweets sent during the Japanese Earth quake and this year’s US Super Bowl. However unlike previous Tweet extravaganzas, this was the highest sustained rate of Tweets ever, amounting to an average of 12,384,000 tweets per hour!
We’ll keep you updates as more stats regarding the spike in internet usage emerge.
You can tell us about how you learned of Osama’s death by posting comments below this post:
