Beyonce's pregnancy announcement sparks largest Twitter spike in history

LOS ANGELES - The news of Beyonce’s pregnancy sparked a tweeting spree greater than any other event in history.

Seriously.

Soon after Beyonce showed off her “baby bump” at the conclusion of her performance at the MTV Video Music Awards, the number of tweets per second jumped to 8,868, surpassing all previous Twitter spikes.

The previous record (7,196) came at the conclusion of the women’s World Cup Final between the United States and Japan.

The breaking news of Osama bin Laden’s death lead to 5,106 tweets per second and the top mark during Super Bowl 2011 was 4,064 tweets per season, according to TechCrunch.com.

The Royal Wedding had a Twitter spike of 3,966 tweets per second.

Overall, the VMAs have been the most discussed television show on social networks by a wide margin this week, according to Trendrr.tv.

The average age of the VMA viewer, their familiarity with social media, and the promotion of Twitter throughout the broadcast were all contributing factors to the spike resulting from Beyonce’s announcement.

That rationale certainly beats the alternative--that Beyonce's announcement was the biggest news ever.