On Election night everyone was glued to their screens. Not just their TV screens, but also their computer screens. Going to the major news sites, hitting refresh on the interactive electoral maps millions of times, and watching Obama and McCain give their final speeches of the campaign streamed live over the Web. According to Akamai, which is the content delivery network for most major news sites including CNN (which had a record day on its own), NBC, Reuters, and the BBC, global visitors to news sites peaked last night at 11 PM with 8,572,042 visitors per minute.
That is double the normal traffic level, and 18 percent above the previous peak of 7.3 million visitors per minute achieved during the World Cup back in June, 2006. (The third biggest peak to news sites was last March during the first day of the U.S. college basketball playoffs when it hit 7 million visitors per minute).
How long will this record last and what will be the next event to topple it?
(Hat tip to Beet.TV).
If Obama’s sweating in ceremony is streamed live online (like it should be) than and I’m internet traffic (not just news sites) will reach very high levels.
Or when ABC shows the last episode of Lost.
I meant to say swearing in ceremony
This is not surprising…
After all the election is not just for another country … it is for USA.
Whoever is the president of USA, is officially the “World’s most Powerful Man!!!”
http://www.livbit.com
I would actually disagree and say that the leader of OPEC who makes the final decisions on Oil Prices each week is actually the worlds most powerful man!
It is great to see that the sites were able to handle that amount of traffic!
See the thing is a lot of us even not in the US have been looking for someone to believe in Listening to Obama for the first time in my life yesterday I wanted to believe in him. It is a feeling I have always wanted but never had towards our policitians in Canada.
News sites get more traffic when showing actual news. News at 11.
Sadly, the only thing that brings more people to watch tv, or go online, is a funeral. So while his swearing in will be historic, I would say his death would be more so as people go online to send condolences, watch tributes, etc.
Funerals are a great thing for TV networks. Princess Diana death and funeral ring a bell anyone?
Dwayne.
http://probablysucks.com
Sandra you sure are one twisted maladjusted individual. I’m glad I haven’t had the displeasure of meeting you personally.
World Cup 2010!!!!
Peter
http://www.thewebwar.com
stop spamming.
http://vidsonly.blogspot.com
there were so many people awake outside US for that election !!
everyone already knew Barack Obama was going to shine!
Darn looks like MSNBC took their live stream down…
Umm huge additional money to be made there for the tons of geeks out there who have no cable!
Will be good to see the google analytics benchmarking data for news sites to see how severe the spike is…
Once they called OHio, I knew Obama would win and read a book. I only caught the first bit of his speech. It was good, but I got tired and fell asleep. I’ll watch the rest online!
I got my News at http://www.videonewslive.com
I suggest TC should be the public advisor (not as in Govt, but as in open) to suggest which energy startup should be bought by which VC and sold to which incumbent energy megacorp. Fuel’s running out, we better be quick about effective energy transition. You dont flush out incumbents, that’s the republican way of thinking, you transform them, that’s the liberal way. TC looks really well placed for that. Going to a green economy in four years aint gonna be easy.
Standard disclaimer: YMMV