Beyonce's Baby News Generated More Tweets Per Second Than Steve Jobs' Death

Posted on October 7, 2011

The death of Steve Jobs ignited a massive spike in tweets on Twitter. There were 6,049 Tweets per Second (TPS) at its peak.

However, there were several events that generated more tweets per second. Four events rank ahead of Steve Jobs' death in TPS. Beyonce's baby announcement after her performance at the MTV Video Music Awards still tops them all by a wide margin. Here is a list of the top five TPS events:

1. 8,868 TPS: Beyonce/MTV VMAs (8-28-11)
2. 7,196 TPS: Japan Beats US in Women's World Cup (7-17-11)
3. 7,166 TPS: Brazil eliminated from Copa America (7-17-11)
4. 6,939 TPS: New Year's Eve 2011 (12-31-10)
5. 6,049 TPS: Steve Jobs death (10-5-11)

The reason Steve Jobs' death generated less tweets per second than Beyonce is because Beyonce's news came during a live broadcast (the MTV VMAs) being watched by millions. The news about Steve Jobs certainly spread very quickly on Twitter and around the Internet, but not nearly as many people found out about instantaneously.