Robert Evatt: Tweets skyrocket during Super Bowl
BY ROBERT EVATT World Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 05, 2013
2/05/13 at 6:43 AM
For years, some people have been saying they watch the Super Bowl for the ads. In the coming years, it might be said that people watch the Super Bowl for the tweets.
Although numbers from an array of sources vary, commentary about the Super Bowl on Facebook, Twitter and other social media websites likely reached 30.6 million unique mentions, up from 12.2 million last year.
That's huge. By comparison, the three presidential debates combined generated 27.63 million tweets on Twitter, but that's just on one social network - though apparently the chattiest one.
Surveys of Sunday's game even broke down the number of tweets per minute at specific times. Bluefin Labs estimated that the Destiny's Child reunion during the halftime show generated 257,500 tweets per minute, and the conclusion of the show had 268,000 tweets per minute.
The power outage reached 231,500 tweets per minute at its peak, while the insane 108-yard kickoff return for a touchdown got 185,000.
These numbers are interesting, though they seem ultimately useless. But businesses see plenty of use in them. The huge social media engagement explains why seemingly everyone unveiled their Super Bowl ads online ahead of time or encouraged you to go online for more information, or, in the case of an estimated 38 percent of advertisers, posted Twitter hashtags for individual tweets in the hope that viewers would use them.
The act of watching live TV is changing. We're no longer just sitting by passively - we want to interact with what we're seeing. I have a feeling we'll be seeing a lot more online hooks included in ads and shows in the near future.
New from Microsoft
After taking a moment to catch its breath, Microsoft is returning with a slew of new products and changes.
Last week the company released Office 2013, its latest update to its productivity suite. The biggest change is the creation of a subscription price, which charges $100 per year but allows you to install the software on multiple devices. You can still pay a one-time fee of $219, but that's only for one computer.
The Surface Pro tablet, which is the Microsoft device that runs the full version of Windows 8, comes out Saturday at a starting price of $799. I'll get an opportunity to use one in the coming days, so I'll pass along my impressions soon.
Also, the days of upgrading to Windows 8 for $40 are over, as Microsoft just raised the price to $119.
Original Print Headline: Tweets skyrocket during Super Bowl
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