Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Social Media
  3. News

Soccer World Cup Final generates 32.1m tweets, breaks TPM record

By
Catch the World Cup Final?
Recommended Videos

If you did watch it, perhaps you were tweeting your way through it, too. A couple of hours after it was all over, Twitter revealed that 32.1 million messages were posted during the game, which saw Germany beat Argentina with a goal in extra time.

world_cup_final_total_tweets
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The social media giant no doubt wished it could’ve proudly announced the figure as “a new Twitter record!”, but Germany’s sensational pummeling of Brazil in the semis last Tuesday took that honor, with 35.6 million tweets posted. The final game, watched by an estimated one billion people worldwide, kicked off at Brazil’s fabled Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday afternoon local time.

“Whether joining in the #GER celebration or expressing heartbreak for #ARG, football fans around the world shared their own reactions on Twitter,” the company’s Lewis Wiltshire wrote in a blog post. “When the final whistle sounded and #GER claimed their 4th championship, we saw 618,725 tweets per minute (TPM) discussing the match – a Twitter record for an event.”

Yes! A Twitter record!

Götze’s superbly taken goal generated 556,499 TPM, while the awkward post-match moment where a miserable Messi had to go up and collect his player-of-the-tournament award and then stand with German goalkeeper Manuel Neuer, who’d just picked up the best keeper award, generated an impressive 395,773 TPM.

We guess most of them said, “Messi?!? Player of the tournament?!?”.

world cup final_TPM
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Wiltshire’s post also included an odd-looking pulsating map (below) showing “how the entire match played out on Twitter around the world.” I’ll be honest, watching this blob-filled animation do not-very-much was only marginally more interesting than last week’s excruciatingly dull semi-final clash between the Netherlands and Argentina, though there is an attention-grabbing moment at the 18:20 mark when Germany score their late winner. 

And look, someone in French Polynesia was tweeting occasionally, too.

The blog post also pulls together various images tweeted after the final whistle, including several by members of the German team. Angela Merkel even found her way into some of them, possibly creating a new Twitter record for the number of tweeted images featuring a world leader with a winning sports team.

Topics
Trevor Mogg
Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
Bluesky barrels toward 1 million new sign-ups in a day
Bluesky social media app logo.

Social media app Bluesky has picked nearly a million new users just a day after exiting its invitation-only beta and opening to everyone.

In a post on its main rival -- X (formerly Twitter) -- Bluesky shared a chart showing a sudden boost in usage on the app, which can now be downloaded for free for iPhone and Android devices.

Read more
How to make a GIF from a YouTube video
woman sitting and using laptop

Sometimes, whether you're chatting with friends or posting on social media, words just aren't enough -- you need a GIF to fully convey your feelings. If there's a moment from a YouTube video that you want to snip into a GIF, the good news is that you don't need complex software to so it. There are now a bunch of ways to make a GIF from a YouTube video right in your browser.

If you want to use desktop software like Photoshop to make a GIF, then you'll need to download the YouTube video first before you can start making a GIF. However, if you don't want to go through that bother then there are several ways you can make a GIF right in your browser, without the need to download anything. That's ideal if you're working with a low-specced laptop or on a phone, as all the processing to make the GIF is done in the cloud rather than on your machine. With these options you can make quick and fun GIFs from YouTube videos in just a few minutes.
Use GIFs.com for great customization
Step 1: Find the YouTube video that you want to turn into a GIF (perhaps a NASA archive?) and copy its URL.

Read more
I paid Meta to ‘verify’ me — here’s what actually happened
An Instagram profile on an iPhone.

In the fall of 2023 I decided to do a little experiment in the height of the “blue check” hysteria. Twitter had shifted from verifying accounts based (more or less) on merit or importance and instead would let users pay for a blue checkmark. That obviously went (and still goes) badly. Meanwhile, Meta opened its own verification service earlier in the year, called Meta Verified.

Mostly aimed at “creators,” Meta Verified costs $15 a month and helps you “establish your account authenticity and help[s] your community know it’s the real us with a verified badge." It also gives you “proactive account protection” to help fight impersonation by (in part) requiring you to use two-factor authentication. You’ll also get direct account support “from a real person,” and exclusive features like stickers and stars.

Read more