Twitter users post more than 12,000 tweets per second during Super Bowl

SAN FRANCISCO : Users of the social networking website Twitter posted more than 12,000 tweets per second during the last moments of the Super Bowl XLVI on Sunday, the company said on Monday. It is one of the highest ever number of tweets per second.

Twitter said the highest number of tweets per second was recorded at the end of the game, during the last three minutes, when 12,233 tweets were posted within one second. But an earlier performance by Madonna during the halftime show also set records.

"Madonna's performance during the Super Bowl's halftime show saw an average of 8,000 Tweets per second for five minutes," Twitter said on its website. It said it recorded a peak of 10,245 tweets in one second during Madonna's performance, the second-highest number of the night.

The 12,233 tweets per second is a new record for sports-related events, and significantly higher than the 4,064 tweets per second during the Super Bowl XLV in 2011. The previous record for a sporting event was the 7,196 tweets per second when Japan equalized with three minutes of extra-time remaining and went on to win the Women's World Cup final in Frankfurt in July 2011.

But while Sunday's record is higher than the number of tweets per second during news events such as Steve Jobs' death (6,049 tweets), Bin Laden's death (5,106), the Royal Wedding in England (3,966 tweets), and the Japanese earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 (5,530 tweets), the premiere of the Japanese movie "Castles In The Sky" retains the all-time record.

According to Twitter, the television screening in Japan of Hayao Miyazaki's "Castle in the Sky" led to 25,088 tweets per second at its peak. The company says its users post approximately 250 million messages a day on average, or about 2,900 per second. (BNO News)