The numbers are in, and it looks like the use of text messaging was a clear-cut winner on Tuesday night. Per Sybase 365, the global leader in mobile messaging services, there was an unprecedented surge in SMS traffic during the 10 minutes immediately following the official announcement that Barrack Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States of America. Between 8.00pm and 8.10pm PST, the volume of messages surged over 3 times the "normal" volume for that time of day. The hour between 8.00pm and 9.00pm PST was 9% greater than the same hour on the previous day.
Sybase 365 reported that as polling stations closed across the country and specifically between 4:00pm and 9.00pm PST, more than 1.2 billion SMS messages were sent across the country. Throughout Tuesday, the total number of text messages sent was 10 percent higher than the previous day.
Just to put that into perspective, last May AT&T reported that a text messaging record of 78 million messages dedicated to the 2008 season of American Idol.
1.2 billion vs. a mere 78 million? No doubt this is further proof that this election season, voters embraced technology and social networking.
