Twitter sets record with news of Beyonce's pregnancy

Earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes (and the odd World Cup soccer match) may be newsworthy subjects to post about on microblogging platform Twitter, but it was the news of pop singer Beyonce’s pregnancy that set a new Tweets Per Second (TPS) record.
“Last night at 10:35pm ET, Beyonce's big MTV #VMA moment gave Twitter a record bump: 8,868 Tweets per second,” announced Twitter via its @twitterglobalpr account.

Beyonce arrived on the red carpet at MTV’s Video Music Awards (VMAs) on Sunday, August 28, and revealed to the world that she and her husband Jay-Z are expecting their first baby. Twitter went crazy with Beyonce-themed posts as the singer showed off her growing baby bump.

Twitter’s previous TPS record was reached in July 2011 during the Woman’s World Cup. During the Japan-USA and the Paraguay-Brazil matches, Twitterers sent terms such as the #WWC and #worldcupfinal hashtags and players' names to the top of Twitter's most talked about topics list, setting a record of 7,196 TPS.

Prior to that, the volume of tweets spiked at more than 5,000 TPS in the moments after Japan's devastating earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.