The report that Osama bin Laden had been killed in Pakistan lit up the Internet on Sunday with Akamai reporting more than 4.1 million page views per second on news websites it tracked, including nytimes.com, reuters.com bbc.com and usatoday.com, just before President Obama's 11:30 p.m. ET news conference.
Akamai said that an hour earlier, traffic had been puttering along at 2.5 million page views per second.
The kicker? The 4.1 million PVps didn't even rank in Akamai's Top 10 Net Usage Index for News events. The biggest event, simultaneous World Cup qualifying matches and the longest-ever Wimbledon tennis match, hit 10.4 million PVps; the next biggest blip was the 6.4 million PVps for Champion League/European Cup games, and a slew of other events. Even the Royal Wedding, with more than 5 million PVps ranked higher.
For more:
- see this CNN report