Well, that didn’t take long. Just four seconds after midnight in Japan on January 1st, Twitterers set an all-time record in the number of Tweets sent per second (TPS). At that moment, the world sent a staggering 6,939 TPS wishing friends and followers a fond “Akema#*$!e omedetou gozaimasu” (“Happy New Year!”).
On Oshogatsu (Japanese New Year), Japan virtually shuts down as people spend the day with family and the people with whom they are closest. People make it a point to call their friends and connect with everyone they know to celebrate. With a population of over 127 million, Japanese mobile networks have been known to crash under the strain of this collective cheer. This year, on New Year’s Eve, many people turned to Twitter to celebrate.