The nation and even a lot of people outside of the United States were all atwitter last night about vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s speech at the Republican National Convention — on Twitter.
In what it’s calling the “Palin Peak,” the micro messaging service has a post today outlining how much traffic spiked during her talk. The verdict? If you thought Google’s launch of its new browser Chrome was big, it has nothing on Palin.
That has to be good news for the service; it shows that while many of the so-called “early adopters” on Twitter were tech elites who are naturally going to talk about tech topics, Twitter is gaining more steam around other topics — like politics and natural disasters. (Interestingly, Twitter doesn’t compare Palin’s traffic versus the much-hyped speech Obama gave the week before.)
It’s also noteworthy that the mainstream media is helping Twitter move to mainstream adoption in a major way. C-SPAN has set up a web page dedicated to showing tweets (Twitter messages) about the political conventions, and updates are sometimes shared on the air. Meanwhile, CNN correspondent Rick Sanchez was using Twitter last week to give updates about Hurricane Gustav. He was also reading tweets live on the air.
The graph below shows hourly activity during a few days this week.
You can find me on Twitter here along with fellow VentureBeat writers Eric Eldon, Dean Takahashi, Anthony Ha, Chris Morrison and Dan Kaplan. Oh, and we have a VentureBeat account (for our posts) as well.
And yes, I ripped myself off on the title of this piece.
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Reprinted with permission from VentureBeat. Story copyright 2008 VentureBeat Inc. All rights reserved.
Comments
What hasn't been discussed is Palin's stance on her political issues and how these will affect the American people. For example her political stance on abstinence and sex education. Considering that she would not fund these programs as a govenor how will her being VP affect what will happen to our teens? Considering that abstinence education did not prevent a pregnancy for her daughter, will she now consider that both abstinence and sex education should be taught to teens?
This is very important to me as woman who once was a young girl who would have made better decisions provided that my mother would have discussed safe sex practices ALONG WITH abstinence. This is one of the issues why I can not identify with Palin and why she would not get my vote. We need to coexist and work together not the bully barracuda, pit bull with lip stick!! McCain is going to really have a hard time saying he is willing to reach across the aisle with her on his ticket!
The Glass Ceiling will be cracked, but she is not the woman who will do it!
Wake up America. There are many good things about Sarah Palin but an executive she is not. I retired form a noted corporation and she could never have cut it. Once we had a retired admiral come on as our president. The man was appointed by the family that owned the business. The company took a dive that we could never overcome until the business was sold 15 years later. We should be afraid for our future. We survived because there was a real woman with excutive experience that directly supported this failing president. Palin is a fake.
This business about Palin being attacked what a joke. She could never handle the pressures that Barack has undergone in this election. Sarah and John have been getting a free ride in terms of the press. I can't believe there is so much hatred in the hearts of so called white women. What type of person accepts their narrow ideas at the expense of our national security. Additionally, John McCain is a roll of the dice without question.
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