We knew that the World Cup has been hammering Twitter, breaking traffic records in the process. Now Twitter has revealed just what kind of impact the World Cup -- and the NBA Finals -- have had on the Twitterverse.
On a normal day, Twitter users generate 65 million tweets, or two billion in a single month. That translates to an average of 750 tweets per second.
These are impressive numbers on their own, but football and basketball championships have blown these stats out of the water. According to Twitter, 2,940 tweets per second were generated in the half-minute following Japan's only goal against Cameroon on June 14, nearly four times the average. Brazil's first goal against North Korea wasn't far behind, with 2,928 tweets every second, while Mexico's game-tying score against South Africa generated 2,704 tweets per second.
However, none of these games hold the record for most tweets per second. That's because yesterday's Game seven of the NBA Finals between the L.A. Lakers and the Boston Celtics produced an astounding 3,085 tweets per second -- more than 185,000 tweets every minute.
This is the tweet volume that has been taking Twitter down constantly over the last two weeks. We expect these records to be shattered soon, though -- the World Cup hasn't even entered the round of 16 yet. It means both more milestones and more headaches for Twitter as it tries to keep the service up and running until football's ultimate championship ends.