The number of Twitter users and updates increased significantly last Friday as Obama and McCain took the stage for the first presidential debate, Twitter announced on its blog.
New sign-ups to the microblogging service were up 23 percent from the week before, and up 135 percent during the actual debate from the same time last Friday.
Updates increased 18.5 percent for the day and shot up a whopping 160 percent during the debate.
The numbers are probably due in no small part to the launch of Twitter’s new Election 2008 site and the mainstream press coverage that followed. While the event was sure to attract the typical users, it looks like the politics-focused sub-site successfully introduced Twitter to a whole new crowd.
Predictions for Thursday’s VP debate? Sarah Palin tweets crash the site in record time.
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