When a World Cup goal is scored, Twitter celebrates. The social networking site is seeing huge traffic when a big goal is scored in the soccer tournament.
Though Twitter normally sees about 750 tweets per second on an average day, there were 2,940 tweets per second, then a record, after Japan scored against Cameroon.
Nearly as much traffic was reported after Brazil's first goal against North Korea, as well as after Mexico's tying goal against South Africa on June 11.
Enormous traffic from the World Cup has contributed to frequent outage problems for Twitter.
The site is postponing a planned network overhaul until the World Cup tsunami is over.
Twitter saw the potential of one of the biggest sporting events in the world and set up its own site (twitter.com/worldcup) featuring a continuous stream of "Top Tweets", messages from players, teams and others.
Users can also isolate messages from regular Twitter users by individual match or team and it published a list of suggested accounts to follow during the tournament.
Twitter ban
Some national coaches though don't like the distraction and have banned their players from all social networking sites, Twitter and Facebook included.
"Hello everyone, from today we cannot connect until we get back from the World Cup, I will tell you about it when we get back! Greetings!" said Barcelona and Spain defender Carles Puyol.
England coach Fabio Capello has issued similar orders while the Dutch squad have been barred after striker Eljero Elia made a racist slur against one of his own friends.
During an Internet chat and an online game, the SV Hamburg winger described one of his friends as a "Moroccan cancer", prompting the response that he was a "nigger".
The exchange, filmed by the player's webcam and posted on the Internet, created a stir in the Netherlands.
"We have under-estimated the impact of the new forms of communication. We wanted to give the players freedom, hoping they would act in a responsible manner," said team spokesman Kees Jansma.
"It's a real pity, but we will no longer allow them to communicate using new media."
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