Poll: How Did You Hear About Bin Laden's Death?
The news that Osama bin Laden had been killed first hit last night. How did you hear about it?
The news that Osama bin Laden had been killed by U.S. forces had circulated widely hours before President Barack Obama announced the news to the world last night. Unlike 9/11, when most news was still disseminated via TV or radio, this time the .
Once the story leaked out, the news spread like wildfire on social networks like Twitter and Facebook. If you had a news app on your smartphone, you likely got a push alert with the news. Others may have heard about it from friends via text message, instant message, or email. News sites all over the Web quickly put the news front and center (). And many no doubt still got the news from traditional media like radio and TV.
According to server operator Akamai, 24 percent globally since the news of bin Laden's death, peaking at 4.1 million page views per second (Akamai servers deliver about 20 percent of news content on the Web). When President Obama wrapped his speech last night, over 5,000 tweets were being posted every second.
"When people hear news now, they look to their mobile phones for confirmation," Keynote senior product manager Dave Karow said. To put the impact in perspective of another recent event, it resulted in "a much bigger spike than the royal wedding," Karow added.
Matt Rosoff at Business Insider declared that Twitter just had its CNN moment with the bin Laden news, saying the service was "faster, more accurate, and more entertaining than any other news source out there." Facebook news feeds were filled with comments about the event.
How did you first hear about Osama Bin Laden's death? Let us know in our poll: