Mindblowing #IranElection Stats: 221,744 Tweets Per Hour at Peak

FROM: Mashable

The protests in Iran have only grown in size and in magnitude these last few days. Ever since the highly disputed “landslide victory” for incumbent Ahmadinejad and subsequent charges of voter fraud, Iranians have taken up their cameras, mobile phones, and computers to send Twitter updates, YouTube videos, and Flickr () photos of the riots.

While we knew that these social tools have been instrumental to the Iranian protests (so much so that the U.S. Government asked Twitter to reschedule downtime), we had no idea about the actual number of tweets sent or YouTube videos uploaded until now. Thanks to the social media trend tracker Trendrr, we can show you the sheer scale of the #IranElection crisis discussion.

Twitter: 221,744 “Iran” Tweets in One Hour

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The use of Twitter () has been immense. #IranElection has been a top trending topic for days, as have terms like Iran, Tehran, Ahmadinejad, and Mousavi. But while there have been 10,000 to 50,000 tweets at any hour mentioning “Iran”, it peaked yesterday at 221,744. This seems extreme, but it makes sense when you realize that it corresponds with when Twitter’s downtime was rescheduled, which had major buzz the entire day.

Use of the #IranElection hashtag is extraordinary as well.

We’re approaching one million tweets on the situation, if we haven’t passed that number already. Heck, it’s been 1% of all Twitter chatter, according to Twist. Here it is compared to iPhone chatter:

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The Blogosphere: 2,250,000 Blog Posts in 24 hours

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The number of blog posts discussing Iran has been on a rapid rise as well. There are now over 19,000,000 blog posts that discuss Iran in some fashion, but in the last 24 hours, 2,250,000 posts were published.

That’s nearly 12% of all blog posts related to Iran. And while news stories within Google News have risen dramatically as well, they don’t hold a candle to the social media buzz:

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YouTube: 184,500 Videos on Iran, 3000 in One Day

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YouTube () has been a central social media tool for informing the world exactly what’s happening on the ground. In the last 24 hours, 3000 videos have been uploaded.

Even if every video were just two minutes, that would be over 6000 minutes of video related to the Iran situation. There are days worth of video on YouTube of what’s happening on the ground.

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The Buzz Only Grows

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While numbers can be off, these trends clearly demonstrate that social media has been front-and-center in the Iran election protests. The Iranian government has reportedly been trying to censor some of this communication, but clearly people are finding ways around it. While we know a great deal about what’s happening in Iran, we have almost no idea how it will affect the outcome. This may be the biggest question that remains to be answered.

In the meantime though, we keep refreshing Twitter Search and watching YouTube videos to keep up-to-date. Some are even using social media to help Iranians who are demonstrating in the streets. If you want to better track what’s happening in Iran via social channels, be sure to read our article HOW TO: Track Iran Election with Twitter and Social Media.