When the path-breaking American astronaut Neil Armstrong passed away at age 82 on August 25th, Twitter lit up as people around the world shared the news. Within about a day, their conversations and condolences added up to 1.6 million Tweets.

Inspired by this global expression, our data analyst Nicolas Belmonte put together a visualization of how the word spread on Twitter. Further inspired, our video team (Charlie Wood, Jeremy Briggs and Ian Padgham) created a bit of a story in this video.

We remember the first man on the moon: blog.twitter.com/2012/08/rememb… Our video tribute: youtu.be/1XjF7WHWehg
— Twitter (@twitter) August 31, 2012

We salute the man whose family described him as “a reluctant American hero” whose life “serves as an example to young people around the world to work hard to make their dreams come true, to be willing to explore and push the limits, and to selflessly serve a cause greater than themselves.”

Posted by Karen Wickre, Editorial Director

It’s the final night of the #GOP2012 convention and it was a blockbuster ending in terms of the conversation on Twitter. Tonight, the total number of Tweets sent about the Republican National Convention hit four million soon after the end of Governor Romney’s speech — nearly doubling the total count before today.

And while most people joining the conversation on Twitter couldn’t be here themselves, they were brought closer to the events of the evening and the candidates thanks to the Tweets from Tampa. Tonight we saw incredible behind the scenes pictures documenting @MittRomney readying himself to take the stage and accept his party’s nomination.

The Gov looking over his speech on his iPad. twitter.com/dgjackson/stat…

— Mitt's Body Man (@dgjackson) August 31, 2012

PHOTO: @mittromney enters the building #gop2012 #romneyryan2012 #tcot twitter.com/ZacMoffatt/sta…

— Zac Moffatt (@ZacMoffatt) August 31, 2012

Waiting to go onstage. Wow. This is such an amazing moment for our family. And America twitter.com/tromney/status…

— Tagg Romney (@tromney) August 31, 2012

And now back to the numbers. Gov. Romney’s speech earned the three biggest spikes in conversation of the entire convention— his biggest moment on Twitter occurring at the conclusion of his speech (14,289 Tweets per minute) and the second when he mentioned President Putin at about 11:09 p.m. ET (13,267 Tweets per minute).

While Gov. Romney dominated the night on Twitter, both @marcorubio and Clint Eastwood earned the second and third biggest moments on Twitter of the entire convention, respectively. Rubio’s biggest spike was 8,937 Tweets per minute, Eastwood’s was 7,044 Tweets per minute.

As the nation tuned in to watch tonight’s speeches, Twitter was the place they shared their observations— be they serious or snarky. One creative response to Clint Eastwood’s moment onstage with the empty chair was the creation of @InvisibleObama, an account providing voice to the unseen President. In just 45 minutes the account had gained over 20,000 followers and had been mentioned over 10,000 times on Twitter.

Someone should tell Marco Rubio he's standing on my foot right now.

— Invisible Obama (@InvisibleObama) August 31, 2012

That’s it from Tampa. Keep following @gov for updates from the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte.

Posted by Adam Sharp, Head of Government, News and Social Innovation (@AdamS)

While we’re here in Tampa, we’ve been talking to journalists, candidates, political pundits and others about the way Twitter has influenced the election and their work. Today, we’re talking with Ben Smith, Editor-in-Chief of BuzzFeed.com. @BuzzFeedBen and his team are among the most-followed political reporters on Twitter. Their groundbreaking approach to Twitter for election coverage is as worthy of buzz as the campaigns themselves. The New Republic recently described Buzzfeed’s election coverage as “central to the political conversation on Twitter.”

Here’s more from Ben on integrating Twitter into BuzzFeed reporting:



For the latest from the campaign trail, follow the rest of the Buzzfeed political team too: @buzzfeedandrew, @zekejmiller, @mckaycoppins, @rosiegray, @mmhastings, @chrisgeidner, @dcbigjohn and @rebeccagberg.

Posted by Rachael Horwitz, Senior Manager, Communications (@rachaelrad)

On Thursday, @Telemundo fans can tweet to the beat of the night, and get even closer to the inside action at @PremiosTuMundo Awards, celebrating the year’s best in pop culture.

As music fans already know, Twitter is a must-use tool for catching a glimpse of artists’ behind-the-scenes snapshots, participating in conversation during those “wow” moments, and, of course, showing support for the winners.

And this year, whether they’re passionate about music, fashion, movies, or sports, viewers will have the opportunity to determine the fate of their favorite celebrity attendees — with a Tweet. As the first “Twitter Category” in Spanish-language television history, the “El Favorito De La Noche” Award lets viewers tweet support for their favorite celebrity with the hashtag #PremiosTuMundo plus the celebrity’s name during the Blue Carpet and the main award show. The night will conclude with one celebrity winning the El Favorito De La Noche ("Favorite of the night") Award.

The pre-show, Alfombra de Premios Tu Mundo, starts at 8p.m. ET, and will be followed by the full awards event, all broadcast live from Miami. Don’t miss it!

Artist @LorenzoOBLimon is already getting a start by heading to Miami early:

Ya voy rumbo a Miami. @premiostumundo Que tengan bien d?a!
— Lorenzo Mendez (@LorenzoOBLimon) August 28, 2012

If you like superstar @jencarlosmusic, he’s looking forward to his fans’ support on the big night:

LosAmoATodos!!! Y nos vemos este jueves en PremiosTuMundo!!! Muchas gracias por todo el apoyo!!
— Jencarlos - Oficial (@jencarlosmusic) August 28, 2012

@XimenaDuque is excited about receiving votes from her fans on Thursday, too. She tweeted:

#What? Nos vemos el Jueves en @premiostumundo feliz semana!!!!
— ximena duque (@ximenaduque) August 27, 2012

To savor even more of the scene, follow Premios Tu Mundo’s Talent Member list. And to stay involved with TV and music events on Twitter, be sure to follow @TwitterMusic. (Don't forget to tune in next week on September 6th for the MTV Video Music Awards, too.)

Posted by Grace Chu Lee - @gracelee
TV Partnerships Team

Tonight delegates from across the country gathered in the Tampa Bay Times Forum for the second night of speeches at the Republican National Convention. The headliner was Rep. Paul Ryan, who was officially nominated to become the Vice Presidential nominee. Ryan excited the crowd and got people talking on Twitter... In fact, Tweets about the #GOP2012 convention topped two million as Ryan took the stage—six times the Tweets sent about the 2008 conventions combined.

The Republican VP nominee also drove the top three peaks tonight in Tweets-per-minute, the highest coming at the conclusion of his speech: 6,669. A big part of that conversation was people tweeting Ryan’s most quotable moments:

Ryan: "College graduates shouldn't have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms staring up at fading Obama posters..."

— S.E. Cupp (@secupp) August 30, 2012

Ryan: "I said, I hope it’s not a deal-breaker Mitt, but my playlist starts with AC/DC, and ends with Zeppelin."

— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) August 30, 2012

Rousing end: ``Let's give this effort everything we have.Let'ssee this through all the way.Let's get this done.'' #GOP2012

— Jonathan D. Salant (@JDSalant) August 30, 2012

And his “faded Obama posters” line has already inspired a Twitter parody account: @FadedObama.

Among the other speakers, the night’s biggest star was former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Her speech peaked at 3,961 Tweets per minute, higher than any speaker outside of Ryan. Much of the Twitter conversation was about the style of her speech:

Best part of listening to Condi is you can hear the nervous tremor in her voice and yet she is completely fluent at the same time.

— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) August 30, 2012

Rice's cadence and sentence structure are decidedly from the '50s-'70s era of speechwriting, and thus stand out in this bumper sticker room.

— James Ledbetter (@ledbetreuters) August 30, 2012

And noting that she delivered the speech without a teleprompter...

One of Condi Rice's teleprompters. Note: it ain't on. #gop2012 twitter.com/Phil_Mattingly…

— Phil Mattingly (@Phil_Mattingly) August 30, 2012

Stay tuned to @gov for more updates tomorrow from the big finale of the Republican National Convention!

Posted by Adam Sharp, Head of Government, News and Social Innovation (@AdamS)

As the number of businesses that turn to Twitter to keep in touch with their customers grows, so does the variety of their needs. We hear continually from companies looking for tools to help them engage with customers, understand what people are saying about them on Twitter, and learn more about their followers so they can share more valuable, timely content.

Meanwhile, there is a thriving ecosystem of Twitter developers building products and services that address these needs and help businesses grow. To make it easier for businesses to find the right tools, we’re launching the Twitter Certified Products Program. Certified Products represent some of the best offerings in these three categories:

1. Engagement: To get closer to customers on Twitter. One example: Sprinklr has helped companies such as GM, Virgin America and Nike respond to Tweets at scale.

2. Analytics: To measure activity on Twitter and offer insights into what people are saying. For instance, Crimson Hexagon has helped Hollywood studios better understand how conversation on Twitter relates to box office success.

3. Data reseller: To make a large number of public Tweets available to partners to build products and services. For example, Gnip and DataSift power many of the monitoring and analytics products on the market.
Today, we’re launching the program with twelve partners:

• Attensity
• Crimson Hexagon
• Dataminr
• DataSift
• ExactTarget
• Gnip
• HootSuite
• Mass Relevance
• Radian6
• SocialFlow
• Sprinklr
• Topsy

We’re working closely with this group of partners to help shape their products to fit the needs we hear about from our brand, publishing and media partners.

And this is just the beginning. We look forward to adding more partners to the program, especially as developers continue to invest in these areas. Our Developer Blog has more information about the types of products we want to see in the program as well as how to apply, here.

Doug Williams - @dougw
Manager, Business Development

Just as Olympics withdrawal is starting to set in for many of us, the 2012 Paralympics are getting underway. During the Olympic Games, fans around the world sent more than 150 million Tweets cheering for their athletes and teams. As we head into the Paralympics, Twitter will once again be the place to watch the competition unfold, as well as get closer to the extraordinary stories of the Paralympic athletes.

One of the breakout stars on the track (and on Twitter) during the Olympics was South African runner and double amputee Oscar Pistorius (@OscarPistorius), with more than 250,000 Tweets celebrating his accomplishment. Now he’s heading to the Paralympics, and giving his fellow sprinters an idea of what to train for:

Not bad not bad. Ran 11.17sec into a -1.7m/s wind. BOOM! Ready for Para's!

— Oscar Pistorius (@OscarPistorius) August 19, 2012

Many other Paralympians are using Twitter to mark their journey to London. Track star Jarryd Wallace (@aleginfaith) tweeted a photo of a slight snag in his high-speed training:

Prosthitists these days thinking they can just take your foot off and leave you stranded.. #foundawaytoslowmedown twitter.com/aleginfaith/st…

— Jarryd Wallace (@aleginfaith) November 1, 2011

Alana Nichols (@alananichols21), a member of the U.S. wheelchair basketball team, tells us exactly what it takes to get the group to London:

The #USParalympic women's #wcbasketball team doesn't travel light... But we have fun:) twitter.com/alananichols21…

— Alana Nichols (@alananichols21) August 23, 2012

One the world’s fastest women, April Holmes (@AprilHolmes), has been tweeting about her journey to London. As she says, “I look at Twitter like it’s an extension of my leg.” Here she debuts the custom spikes she’ll be competing in:

The moment you've all been waiting for...my @jumpman23 2012 #Paralympic Games spikes inspired by the AJXXlockerz.com/s/235636164

— April Holmes (@aprilholmes) August 17, 2012

And among her many fans is NBA superstar @Shaq:

Check out my girl @aprilholmes and @usparalympics as the head to @paralympic Games in London. #USA

— SHAQ (@SHAQ) August 9, 2012

As the Paralympians settle into Olympic Village, they’re tweeting about their excitement:

100 times better to look out my window at night and see the olympic stadium lighting up the sky rather than just the boring old stars!!

— McKenzie Coan (@McKenzie_Coan) August 28, 2012

Two days in the village and it already feels like home. My room may be tiny but I am surrounded by the most amazing athletes. Nothing better

— Josh George (@jsgeorge) August 28, 2012

We can’t wait to see what this awesome group of athletes will share from tonight’s Opening Ceremony and throughout the ten day competition. To keep up with all the action, follow the official Paralympic Games (@Paralympic), the US team (@USParalympics) and the 94 tweeting team members on this list.

Posted by Karen Wickre, Editorial Director (@kvox)

The Republican National Convention officially began yesterday but the big ticket activities kicked off today. First order of business: formally selecting @MittRomney as the Republican nominee for President. Tweets related to #GOP2012 during today’s roll call peaked at 1,448 per minute at 5:44p ET — the first large spike in conversation of the convention.

But #GOP2012 tweeters were just getting warmed up. Tonight’s speeches helped drive peaks in conversation far higher than at any point earlier in the day.

One of the night’s most anticipated speakers was @AnnDRomney. In fact, the highest Tweets per minute spike of the entire night — 6,195 — came when Governor Romney joined his wife on stage at the end of her speech.

Garrett Jackson, the Governor’s body man, tweeted a photo of Romney watching his wife’s speech from backstage.

The Gov backstage watching @anndromney speak at the convention. twitter.com/dgjackson/stat…

— Mitt's Body Man (@dgjackson) August 29, 2012

It wasn’t just that Mrs. Romney’s speech inspired a lot of conversation, but Twitter responded positively as well. Her Twitter Political Index score nearly doubled over the course of her speech, from 45 to 83— the biggest increase for any of the night’s speakers.

Gov. Chris Christie’s speech inspired the second highest spike in conversation for the night (6,079 Tweets per minute), at the point of his line about a “second American century”. Right after he was finished, the Governor began tweeting from the special account he set up for the night: @ChristieKeynote.

I believe we have been paralyzed with our desire to be loved.

— Gov. Chris Christie (@christiekeynote) August 29, 2012

Tonight we choose respect over love. We are not afraid. We are taking our country back.

— Gov. Chris Christie (@christiekeynote) August 29, 2012

@RickSantorum’s speech inspired a lot of conversation, though much of it was satire about a moment in his speech mentioning hands. Even David Axelrod stepped across the aisle to join the conversation.

Santorum's speech: all hands, no Mitt!

— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) August 29, 2012

Keep following @gov this week. We’ll have more to share as the convention rolls on.

Posted by Adam Sharp, Head of Government, News and Social Innovation (@AdamS)

Here in Tampa at the 2012 Republican National Convention, hashtags are the new political slogan:

At the RNC, @twitter is giving out these #GOP2012 buttons twitter.com/lheron/status/…

— Liz Heron (@lheron) August 27, 2012

While the speeches will be at the podium this week, the conversation will be on Twitter: we’ve already seen more Tweets about this week’s confab than we saw during the entire week of the 2008 Republican convention. To gather the most relevant, interesting Tweets during the convention we’ve created an event page at Twitter.com/#GOP2012. Here you’ll see Tweet highlights from behind the scenes and on the floor. You’ll find Tweets from Romney campaign staff, convention organizers, delegates, insiders and some of the 15,000 journalists and observers on the ground. For political junkies who can’t be in Tampa themselves, the event page offers an insiders view of the action.

Of course, our Twitter team is spending the week on the ground to provide support to our users, the convention organizers and the media. We’ll also be releasing interesting data to share as big moments unfold on the convention floor and on Twitter.

Here’s a great Tweet from @johnboehner from the floor:

The view from backstage at @gopconvention, looking out at the @tbtimesforum #gop2012: twitpic.com/aoe03x

— John Boehner (@johnboehner) August 27, 2012

Besides keeping up with Twitter.com/#GOP2012, be sure to follow @gov for more Twitter insights from the convention floor. And stay tuned next week, when we head to Charlotte for the Democratic National Convention.

Posted by Adam Sharp, Head of Government, News and Social Innovation (@AdamS)

A year ago we introduced the world to Twitter Bootstrap, a sleek and powerful open source project that helps you build awesome stuff on the web with speed, ease and style. Bootstrap was made to help our engineers improve the tools we use to run Twitter internally; we quickly recognized that folks outside the company could make use of it as well. Fast forward one year to today, Bootstrap's first birthday, and we have a massively popular project that keeps growing while staying true to its ultimate goal: helping anyone make amazing software for the web.

Today, we want to highlight Bootstrap's growth and impact over the last 12 months and introduce the newest version, Bootstrap 2.1.

Popularity

Within a few months of its launch, the project grew to be the most popular project on the world's largest social coding service, GitHub. Since then, we've released a handful of updates to continually close bugs, add awesome new features, and make it easier to use for those who are less familiar with web design. In all, we've closed thousands of bugs while adding dozens of features to help make more compelling and visually pleasing web sites and applications. The open source community has been incredibly kind and appreciative about Bootstrap over the last year, so we're delighted to keep giving back.

Community

Speaking of community, Bootstrap wouldn't be the success it is today without a lot of love and support from the development and open source communities. Looking past just the bug reports and feature requests, we have an amazing set of people contributing directly to Bootstrap. More than 100 people have pushed code to Bootstrap. That's a stat we're not only proud of, but excited to see grow.

We're constantly amazed at the number and scope of projects using Bootstrap. Some of our favorites come from larger organizations: NASA's code.nasa.gov, NBC's BreakingNews.com, and the White House Digital Government initiative. Looking back to the startup community we’ve come from, there are many teams like SoundReady, Kippt, and Jetstrap using Bootstrap to create brand new products and services.

Bootstrap 2.1

With Bootstrap 2.1, we focused on simplicity. We completely overhauled the documentation to make it easier for people just getting to know Bootstrap and web development. We placed more emphasis on live examples and succinct, thorough text to walk people through each aspect. And, as is the case with every release, we've added a handful of new features and made existing ones even better. But that just brushes the surface: we've closed over 100 issues in Bootstrap 2.1—issues all reported and documented by the very folks who use it.

Looking forward

The Web is a constantly changing place, and the tools we use to build for that evolving landscape need to reflect it. Looking ahead, we will continue focus on simplicity as we add new features, improve mobile functionality, and encourage developers to embrace new techniques as we add them to the framework. The last year has been a blast, and we're excited to keep improving Bootstrap with every release in order to help others make the web a better place.

Posted by Mark Otto (@mdo), Designer

After so much (well-deserved) focus on the incredible feats — and notable Tweets — of Olympic athletes recently, we wanted to switch gears and shine a light on some of the best musical moments to come out of the London games.

The theme of last Sunday night’s Closing Ceremony was a “symphony of British music”, and music ruled the night on Twitter too. Besides the Opening Ceremony’s unforgettable “Chariots of Fire” performance featuring Rowan "Mr Bean" Atkinson, Britain’s music legends like The Who, Sir Paul McCartney and Sir Elton John, to name a few, also captivated the crowd.

A special shout-out goes to Scottish-Zambian singer Emeli Sand? (@EmeliSande), one of the stars of the Closing Ceremony, for live-tweeting her performance. Her Tweets offer a lively perspective on what it’s like to sing in front of thousands and share the stage with the UK’s most famous acts.

Feeling a little nervous before hitting the stage tonight! instagr.am/p/OPglXXH5TL/

— Emeli Sand? (@emelisande) August 12, 2012

Just met rock royalty....Roger Daltrey and Pete Townsend!!

— Emeli Sand? (@emelisande) August 12, 2012

Wow..to be here!! That was such a rush! instagr.am/p/OPhSseH5Ts/

— Emeli Sand? (@emelisande) August 12, 2012

Time to hand over to brazil!!!

— Emeli Sand? (@emelisande) August 12, 2012

She’s since gained tens of thousands of followers, and is seeing a positive outpouring of conversation around her music.

A few more of the world’s favorite artists found time to live-tweet the Closing Ceremony’s unforgettable moments. A high point: when the much-loved Spice Girls reunited for the big close, which sparked more than 116,000 Tweets per minute. They gave us all a blast from the past as they performed two of their hottest hits, “Wanna-be” (classic) and “Spice Up Your Life.” Suffice it to say that Baby, Sporty, Ginger, Posh and Scary Spice were in full Girl Power mode.

English singer Jessie J (@JessieJ) performed her songs “Dynamite” and “Price Tag,” she also debuted a light remix of the Queen’s classic “We Will Rock You.” British rap star, Tinie Tempah (@TinieTempah) joined Jessie J and Taio Cruz (@TaioCruz) to end up their show with the Bee Gees’ song “Dancing.”

Before hitting the stage, @JessieJ tweeted a photo from backstage in full costume:

Oh what a night! So proud to represent the UK! Congratulations to everyone! Booooooom!instagr.am/p/OP6m8iQ0Xw/

— JESSIE J (@JessieJ) August 13, 2012

@VictoriaBeckham (‘Posh Spice’) tweeted her unforgettable moment:

We did it!! I love u girls so much!!!!! xxx vb twitter.com/victoriabeckha…

— Victoria Beckham (@victoriabeckham) August 12, 2012

And who knew that British rapper @TinieTempah is a huge Spice Girls fan?

I don't know how many people will be able to say they were able to do this in there lifetime but.....I GOT A instagr.am/p/OPvlxRI2We/

— Tinie Tempah (@TinieTempah) August 12, 2012

Twitter brought us closer to everything we love about music and the Olympics during the London Games. And as the world watched, performers captured unforgettable moments and shared their life-changing moments.

Posted by Tatiana Simonian, Head of Music (@tatiana)

On the closing day of the 2012 Summer Olympics, we’re looking back at all of the memorable moments of the London Games: the wins, the losses, the drama, and above all, the Tweets. No matter the sport, Twitter was your front row seat for all the action.

We saw more than 150 million Tweets about the Olympics over the past 16 days. Let’s take a look at some of the big trends within that massive conversation.

The biggest moments of competition, as measured by Tweets per minute, were:

News of presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s (@MittRomney) selection of Paul Ryan (@PaulRyanVP) as his running mate spread quickly on Twitter. The conversation peaked at 3,749 Tweets per minute at 9:29 am EDT this morning as Ryan took the stage at a rally in Norfolk, Virginia:


Speculation about Ryan’s selection began building shortly after 11 pm EDT with word from Romney’s Communications Director (@GGitcho) that an announcement would be coming today, with NBC’s Chuck Todd (@ChuckTodd) confirming the choice shortly after midnight.

Now that Ryan is on the Romney ticket, his momentum on Twitter is already starting to build. His new @PaulRyanVP account gained about 60,000 followers in the first eight hours following its official launch, and his congressional office account (@RepPaulRyan) is approaching 175,000.

We’ve also been able to use the Twitter Political Index to measure conversation around the rumored Vice Presidential candidates, which showed mounting support for Ryan relative to other presumed front-runners over several months. With an average Twindex of 33 for the week of April 29, Ryan trailed other rumored candidates, including @MarcoRubio, @RobPortman, and @TimPawlenty. By this week, Ryan was leading the others with an average Twindex of 63.

Tomorrow night, the world will meet Sharkzilla. That’s right: Discovery Channel’s Shark Week (@SharkWeek) is back! And for the first time, viewers will get to see what it’s like being in the producer’s seat for one of the most popular TV events. During the nightly “chompdown”, viewers will get to choose what they want to see Sharkzilla sink his teeth into. Using the #Chompdown hashtag and item names displayed on air, they can cast their vote for what unlikely item will be consumed by the massive mechanical megalodon.

It may be Shark Week’s 25th anniversary, but this is the first time we’ve seen a TV program put the outcome of a show right into their viewers’ hands. Viewers can participate in the #chompdown from Sunday through Thursday (Aug 12-16), beginning at 9pm ET and 9pm PT. In true choose-your-own-adventure style, both the east coast and west coast Shark Week audiences will have a chance to choose the outcome that they’ll see at the end of the 10pm hour.

Fin-atics will also have a chance to be on air by tweeting about #SharkWeek and joining the
Shark Week Twitter Frenzy, as Discovery Channel puts live fan Tweets on air each night in the 9 and 10pm hours.

Follow @SharkWeek to stay updated on all the jaw-dropping action, and get ready to cast your votes for what you want to see happen on your TV. Sharkzilla is waiting for everyone to pick his next meal:

2 more days until the #Chompdown! #Sharkzilla is ready; are you?

— Shark Week (@SharkWeek) August 11, 2012

Posted by Grace Chu Lee, TV Partnerships Team (@gracelee)

We often say “You never know where Twitter will take you,” but here’s one that (almost) defies imagination. Last night, we saw that NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (@NASAJPL) was live-tweeting the journey to Mars. As Curiosity, the car-sized rover, made its descent onto the Red Planet, the #JPL team shared Twitter updates directly from the command center. And that stream reveals a truly remarkable and historic sequence of events:

Just turned off the uplink signal - the spacecraft will operate autonomously through landing. Take care Curiosity. Godspeed. #msl #jpl #nasa

— Bobak F. (@tweetsoutloud) August 6, 2012

Right now #CUriosity has transitioned to #EDL mode.This means her fault protection has been battle shorted, and she is going in.

— Adam Steltzner (@steltzner) August 6, 2012

Curiosity is about to vent the cruise stage part of its cooling system in prep for separation #MSL

— Ray Baker (@RaySBaker) August 6, 2012

No comment needed. Entry minus 3 minutes. #MSL #EDL twitter.com/LeeCuriosity/s…

— Steven Lee (@LeeCuriosity) August 6, 2012

And then, after the "seven minutes of terror", in the words (and through the eyes) of the Curiosity rover itself:

It once was one small step... now it's six big wheels. Here's a look at one of them on the soil of Mars #MSL twitter.com/MarsCuriosity/…

— Curiosity Rover (@MarsCuriosity) August 6, 2012

This monumental scientific achievement quickly inspired an Twitter outpouring of awe, pride, and even a dash of levity:

At the historic landing of @marscuriosity at @nasajpl last night. What an accomplishment! #MSL twitter.com/RepKarenBass/s…

— Congressmember Bass (@RepKarenBass) August 6, 2012

Dear @marscuriosity, Neil deGrasse Tyson signing out on Earth. Back to work - for us both. Closing my Twitterverse wormhole to Mars.

— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) August 4, 2012

The rover “Curiosity” successfully landed on Mars this AM, proving a historic moment for space exploration and the US. goo.gl/DsCBt

— John Shimkus (@RepShimkus) August 6, 2012

@sesamestreet Science is cool. Yip-yip-yip-yip... Uh-huh. Uh-huh. #STEM #MSL

— Curiosity Rover (@MarsCuriosity) August 6, 2012

So, uh, @marscuriosity. Hi there.Welcome to the neighborhood.Sorry about the mess.Haven't had guests in a while.

— The Surface of Mars (@surfaceofmars) August 6, 2012

The @MarsCuriosity account will continue to share updates from the rover’s explorations, including photos from the surface of Mars. As Buzz Aldrin (@TheRealBuzz) once said, “Mars is there, waiting to be reached”. Thanks for taking us there, @NASAJPL team.

We’ve been keeping an eye on the data to see which #Olympics moments have really inspired conversation on Twitter, and sharing that along the way. Yesterday, the peak of conversation came when Gabby Douglas earned herself the women’s all-around gymnastics gold medal, with 38,000 Tweets per minute related to the event. The Phelps-Lochte showdown was another huge moment, with 25,000 Tweets per minute about the end of their race.

What’s been so special about these Olympics is how often the athletes join the conversation themselves. We’ve seen Olympians engaging with their fans, cheering each other, and rueing a poor performance. But Tyler Clary (@TylerClary) did something unique— he didn’t just exchange a few Tweets, he narrated his own performance in the 200m backstroke. He took advantage of the tape delay for the US audience to send Tweets about what he was thinking in his big gold medal race just a few hours earlier.

It’s the unique perspective only an Olympian can provide, and Clary did, sharing his journey with thousands— narrating along with the race as they watched on TV.

Who wants to hear my narrative of what was happening leading up to my race and even after the race???

— Scott Tyler Clary (@TylerClary) August 3, 2012

I'm back in the ready room dancing and listening to a little dubstep, but right before I came out I switched on "The Motto" by Drake :)

— Scott Tyler Clary (@TylerClary) August 3, 2012

I see that I'm behind Ryan at the 100 but I am only thinking about building into the last 75

— Scott Tyler Clary (@TylerClary) August 3, 2012

All I could think about after I saw that result was my high school coach Kevin Perry who passed away during my freshman year of college

— Scott Tyler Clary (@TylerClary) August 3, 2012

The next morning Clary gave a shoutout to the musicians who kept him motivated and focused:

Just gave a shutout to @skrillex and @deadmau5 for being my musical inspirations on #USWeekly. I'd love to learn from these guys!!!

— Scott Tyler Clary (@TylerClary) August 3, 2012

And like many Olympians who suddenly find that the world’s spotlight has shone their way, Clary’s idols talked back:

@tylerclary tell you what, hand over that shiny medal thing and ill give you my diablo3 account! :D

— deadmau5 (@deadmau5) August 3, 2012

@tylerclary hahaha, i stood 2 feet away from one once at the winter games in Vancouver. best i could do. is there chocolate inside?

— deadmau5 (@deadmau5) August 3, 2012

After Clary’s big night in the pool and on Twitter, his followers grew by 12x.

Posted by Andrew Fitzgerald, Manager, Editorial Programming (@magicandrew)

The past few days have been full of captivating, historic Olympics moments. As records are shattered and dreams achieved, the world has turned to Twitter to come together in celebration. Last night, we saw the biggest spike of the day in Olympics-related conversation during the US prime-time broadcast of Michael Phelps winning the 4x200 freestyle relay, which earned him a record-breaking 19th medal.

Phelps also can claim the record for the most Tweets about an athlete so far during the games. The silver medal in the Twitter-mentions contest goes to Tom Daley (@TomDaley1994) and Ryan Lochte (@RyanLochte) earns the bronze.

Even Olympians come to Twitter to revel in their teammates’ successes. Matt Grevers, who won a gold medal yesterday, found a unique way of congratulating his roommate Nathan Adrian on bringing back his own gold:

As a present to @nathangadrian for winning I shall make his bed. You're welcome buddy. twitter.com/MattGrevers/st…

— Matt Grevers (@MattGrevers) August 1, 2012

McKayla Maroney, a member of yesterday’s gold medal-winning “Fab Five” women’s gymnastics team, Tweeted (and apparently screamed) her enthusiasm for the men’s team in their event today:

AHHHH!!! So excited for the men's all around finals!! Good luck @johnw_orozco & @danelljleyva, I think you'll hear me from my room(; #GoUSA

— McKayla Maroney (@McKaylaMaroney) August 1, 2012

After Rebecca Soni broke the world record en route to qualifying for the 200m breaststroke, her teammate Jessica Hardy sent a heartfelt message:

S/O to my teammate @rebsoni for breaking the WR in the 200br. It's been an honor pushing each other everyday for the past 5yrs. Proud of u!

— Jessica Hardy (@swimhardy) August 1, 2012

In the midst of a race of his own, President Obama took a moment to tweet out his congratulations to Michael Phelps. (Whenever he personally writes a Tweet, he signs it with “-bo”.)

Congrats to Michael Phelps for breaking the all-time Olympic medal record. You’ve made your country proud. -bo

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 1, 2012

And thanks to new cameras installed by LOCOG, you can now see pictures of the athletes as they’re in the process of these incredible feats. The photos are taken from incredible vantage points, and are shared on Twitter:

@L2012BballCam - over the basketball hoop
@L2012GymCam - looking down onto the rhythmic gymnastics mat
@L2012TableCam - looking down onto the table tennis table
@L2012StadiumCam - on the Olympic Stadium roof, looking down onto the track
@L2012MatCam - looking down onto the judo/wrestling mat
@L2012PoolCam - underwater in the aquatics center

That’s definitely not a jellyfish, right? They told me there were no jellyfish in this pool. #London2012 twitter.com/L2012PoolCam/s…

— L2012 Pool Camera (@L2012PoolCam) August 1, 2012

You can find moments and behind-the-scenes views like these as they happen at Twitter.com/#Olympics.

Posted by Andrew Fitzgerald, Manager, Editorial Programming (@magicandrew)

One glance at the numbers, and it’s easy to see why pundits are already calling 2012 “the Twitter election.” More Tweets are sent every two days today than had ever been sent prior to Election Day 2008 — and Election Day 2008’s Tweet volume represents only about six minutes of Tweets today.

All this explosive growth in conversation has fueled Twitter as a platform for civic debate and created a massive data set for analysis — data our Government & Politics team has used to study the State of the Union, a FOX News debate, Super Tuesday, gay marriage and other election-year topics. For the first time, it’s possible to measure conversations that just an election cycle ago were limited to coffee shops, dinner tables and water coolers.


The Twitter Political Index is built in partnership with the data analysis team at Topsy (@Topsy) and two respected polling firms: The Mellman Group (@markmellman) and North Star Opinion Research (@northstaropin).

Each day, the Index evaluates and weighs the sentiment of Tweets mentioning Obama or Romney relative to the more than 400 million Tweets sent on all other topics. For example, a score of 73 for a candidate indicates that Tweets containing their name or account name are on average more positive than 73 percent of all Tweets.

Just as new technologies like radar and satellite joined the thermometer and barometer to give forecasters a more complete picture of the weather, so too can the Index join traditional methods like surveys and focus groups to tell a fuller story of political forecasts. It lends new insight into the feelings of the electorate, but is not intended to replace traditional polling — rather, it reinforces it.

For example, the trend in Twitter Political Index scores for President Obama over the last two years often parallel his approval ratings from Gallup, frequently even hinting at where the poll numbers are headed. But what’s more interesting are the periods when these data sets do not align, like when his daily scores following the raid that killed Osama bin Laden dropped off more quickly than his poll numbers, as the Twitter conversation returned to being more focused on economic issues.

By illustrating instances when unprompted, natural conversation deviates from responses to specific survey questions, the Twitter Political Index helps capture the nuances of public opinion.
The Index for each candidate updates every day after 8 p.m. ET to reflect shifts in conversation from that day’s events, and is available along with a historical chart at election.twitter.com. During the runup to the election, our partners will be featuring this data on their sites as well: Topsy will be posting detailed analysis at www.topsylabs.com/election, and USA Today is using the Index to create the USA Today/Twitter election meter throughout the campaign. We’ll also tweet daily updates and other observations at @gov.

Posted by Adam Sharp, Head of Government, News and Social Innovation - @AdamS