2010 South Africa is the biggest thing on the Internet… ever
By Dean • Jun 21st, 2010 • Category: Industry News
- Photo: Tsutomu Takasu / Wikimedia Commons
Sometimes some headlines just write themselves. They sound like hyperbole, throwaway fabrication to get clicks. But they’re not. World Cup 2010 is, officially, the biggest online event of all time. And you know who is slacking the most at work during this period? Yep, us Brits are.
Akamai prepared for this
Akamai, which is one of the world’s biggest content distribution networks and supplies many large websites with its interconnecting servers, resulting in content being closer to the end user, beefed up its network in anticipation of the World Cup. The company predicted that 2010 South Africa would be an ‘Internet milestone’ and it was proved correct.
If you want an indication of just how big a deal the World Cup has been, and how much content Akamai is relaying through its network, taking one look at the company’s World Cup tracking site, especially around match times, will give you an indication. At peak, Akamai was processing 425,000 impressions per second, during the South Africa versus Uruguay game. It’s a pretty safe bet the final will exceed that number, too.
Broke Twitter
- Photo: South African Tourism / Flickr
Not only is Akamai saying its tracking more volume than ever on servers it mirrors, Twitter announced at the beginning of 2010 South Africa that it expected to bulk under the pressure. And so it did. Many people have been claiming downtime and instability. The company recently wrote a blog post stating that, at peak (during goals), they saw 2,940 tps (tweets per second). Which, when compared to the daily average of 750 tweets per second, represents a major spike.
The Apps rush
In addition to 2010 South Africa being the biggest event on the Internet, smartphone app developers have taken to the World Cup in droves. Various apps ranging from tourist destinations in South Africa to the very popular (and very annoying, depending on who you ask) free Vuvuzela app available for the iPhone. Quite simply, the world, developers, and even us, are completely enraptured by the World Cup. If only England could figure out a way to win.
Tags for this article: 2010 world cup, iPhone apps
