Twitter Faster than Reality
LA shook at 11:42:15 today according to the official record from the U.S. Geological Survey. But according to [a report of] Twitter activity today (by the tweetip site) it happened 43 seconds earlier at 11:41:32 (adjusted for time zone).
(graphic snagged from tweetip site)
That Twitter routinely breaks news fastest is often discussed, notably in the wake of the May quake in China.
Today the AP’s wire posted news of the earthquake 9 minutes after it happened. 9 minutes is fast. Negative :43 is amazing.
(Yeah, yeah. I know. It’s explainable as an accounting error in twitter’s api or tweetip’s processing. But the point remains that twitter is always on the scene.)
Time…
Twitter’s raw utc timestamp is 18:41:32 – we finished processing at 18:42:51 – our server was processing (and attempting to speak) a sudden flood – 4 tweets per second – so we were a bit slow.
The truth might be somewhere between :) otoh, we may not have recorded the actual first tweet…
hth
michael