40K Tweets per Minute Celebrate Steve Jobs

It’s a sad evening here at TwitSprout headquarters. I was on a Skype call when our co-founder, Adrian, looked over at me from above his monitor - a somber expression on his face - and mouthed the words, “Steve Jobs just died.”

My heart sank. I ended the call. At this moment the entire world began reflecting together on the brilliant innovations Steve Jobs introduced that enrich all our lives. To most of us in technology, in product design, in user experience and beyond, Steve Jobs was not just the CEO of Apple, he was a hero.

Twitter ignited with tweets about Steve Jobs. We started tracking the following keywords at 7:54 PM EST: #stevejobs, stevejobs and “Steve Jobs”. The activity peaked at over 42,000 tweets / minute. I wouldn’t be surprised if Twitter announces this was one of the highest activity events (if not the highest) in Twitter’s history. A testament to Steve Jobs and his profound impact on the world. A snapshot of the tweet volume graph (in tweets per minute) is shown above.

Within minutes President Obama, Bill Gates and others shared heartfelt statements about Steve Jobs. Google updated their homepage to read “Steve Jobs, 1955, 2011”.

You are an inspiration. Thank you, Steve.

-The TwitSprout Team