Obama's speech sets new Twitter record
The Internet has a lot of feelings about President Obama. So many, in fact, that its citizens set a new record last night: Twitter reports that about 52,756 Tweets per minute were written about Obama’s convention speech just after its conclusion. That’s a record for a political event, Twitter spokesperson Elaine Filadelfo told Politico. Mitt Romney’s convention speech, by contrast, drove 14,289 tweets per minute at its peak.
All in all, users sent over 9.5 million tweets about the DNC, crushing the 4 million tweets written about the RNC. Twitter users wrote 4 million messages about the Democratic convention on Day 3 alone. Thanks a lot, #sexyface!
But it’s not all sunshine and hashtags in Donkeyville. Politico also writes that Twitter’s political sentiment index found that tweets about both Obama and his Republican challenger got more negative after their speeches. Responses to ex-prez Bill Clinton, White House car-washer Joe Biden, and “la renarde” Michelle Obama, however, got more positive. That’s likely because Obama and Romney were more likely to inspire cutting remarks from their detractors: “As the more prominent speakers take center stage, it inspires more reactions from the opposition,” Filadelfo told Politico.
Still, the president is currently generating many more positive tweets than Romney — which makes sense, considering Obama’s convention just ended. (On Aug. 31, the day after his RNC speech, Romney outpaced Obama on the political sentiment index by seven points.) Today, Obama has a score of 52, while Romney has a score of 9. This means that tweets about the president are more positive than 52 percent of all other tweets. Adam Sharp, Twitter’s head of government, news, and social innovation, told Bloomberg that a sentiment index score of 50 or more is considered good.
Though there’s a lot to unpack here, the main takeaway might be how huge Twitter has grown since launching in 2006. Politico notes that on Nov. 4, 2008 — a.k.a. Election Day — users sent 1.8 million tweets. Not 1.8 million tweets about Obama and McCain (and Palin, remember her?) — 1.8 million tweets, period.
I’ve got to go tweet about that.
Follow Hillary on Twitter: @hillibusterr
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