While we knew that these social tools have been instrumental to the Iranian protests (so much so that the U.S. Government asked Twitter to reschedule downtime), we had no idea about the actual number of tweets sent or YouTube videos uploaded until now. Thanks to the social media trend tracker Trendrr, we can show you the sheer scale of the #IranElection crisis discussion.
Twitter: 221,744 "Iran" Tweets in One Hour
The use of Twitter has been immense. #IranElection has been a top trending topic for days, as have terms like Iran, Tehran, Ahmadinejad, and Mousavi. But while there have been 10,000 to 50,000 tweets at any hour mentioning "Iran", it peaked yesterday at 221,744. This seems extreme, but it makes sense when you realize that it corresponds with when Twitter's downtime was rescheduled, which had major buzz the entire day.
Use of the #IranElection hashtag is extraordinary as well.
We're approaching one million tweets on the situation, if we haven't passed that number already. Heck, it's been 1% of all Twitter chatter, according to Twist. Here it is compared to iPhone chatter:
The Blogosphere: 2,250,000 Blog Posts in 24 hours
The number of blog posts discussing Iran has been on a rapid rise as well. There are now over 19,000,000 blog posts that discuss Iran in some fashion, but in the last 24 hours, 2,250,000 posts were published.
That's nearly 12% of all blog posts related to Iran. And while news stories within Google News have risen dramatically as well, they don't hold a candle to the social media buzz:
YouTube: 184,500 Videos on Iran, 3000 in One Day
YouTube has been a central social media tool for informing the world exactly what's happening on the ground. In the last 24 hours, 3000 videos have been uploaded.
Even if every video were just two minutes, that would be over 6000 minutes of video related to the Iran situation. There are days worth of video on YouTube of what's happening on the ground.
The Buzz Only Grows
While numbers can be off, these trends clearly demonstrate that social media has been front-and-center in the Iran election protests. The Iranian government has reportedly been trying to censor some of this communication, but clearly people are finding ways around it. While we know a great deal about what's happening in Iran, we have almost no idea how it will affect the outcome. This may be the biggest question that remains to be answered.