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Women's World Cup helps Twitter reach milestone

Twitter's new tweets-per-second record is now 7,196, thanks to the Women's World Cup final between the U.S. and Japan.

Don Reisinger
CNET contributor Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has covered everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Besides his work with CNET, Don's work has been featured in a variety of other publications including PC World and a host of Ziff-Davis publications.
Don Reisinger
Twitter has hit a new milestone, thanks to the Women's World Cup.
Twitter has hit a new milestone, thanks to the Women's World Cup. Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET

The Women's World Cup final was a major event on Twitter yesterday.

At the end of the soccer final between the U.S. and Japan, 7,196 tweets were sent out each second, Twitter announced on its official account yesterday. That figure helped set a new record for tweets per second. The game between Paraguay and Brazil led to a peak of 7,166 tweets per second, catapulting it to the second spot.

That spike in traffic is significant. When President Obama announced the death of Osama Bin Laden earlier this year, Twitter revealed that more than 4,000 tweets were sent out each second. The 2010 NBA finals saw 3,085 tweets per second, and Japan's World Cup victory over Denmark last year caused a spike of 3,283 tweets per second. During the 2011 Super Bowl, Twitter saw 4,064 tweets hit its service every second.

However, until yesterday, the top tally went to Japan's ringing in of the new year, when 6,939 tweets were sent out each second.

Earlier this month, Twitter announced that its users are now sending out 200 million tweets each day, up significantly from the 2 million they tweeted in January 2009 and 65 million they offered up a year ago.