Sybase: all your SMS are belong to Osama's Twitter traffic

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Tuesday, 03 May 2011 11:45

First up it was all your SMS belonging to the Royals, but now the world's most unwanted dead terrorist has exerted his power over the traffic that flows down the river of Twitter - and SMS.

Only yesterday did we get the news from Sybase365 that all your SMS are belong to the Royals, with SMS and MMS traffic spiking 600% due to the 'news' of the Royal Wedding, with those traffic volumes seemingly unforseen by anyone.

Now, the news that Osama bin Laden had finally been expertly killed by the US Military's super-special forces, Sybase365 probably had an inkling it would result in some serious SMS traffic all over again.

Sybase365, which says it is 'the global leader in mobile messaging and mobile commerce services', would certainly be in a position to know, given its commercial operations which target the telco sector.

Once former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's current chief-of-staff, Keith Urbahn, was first to 'leak' the news of Osama's death on Urbahn's Twitter account, Sybase365 says that SMS traffic in the US 'spiked 18% as people informed each other and tuned into the major TV networks covering bin Laden's death' - in less than 30 minutes!

However, while the US wants to bask in the glory of killing its most wanted man, and wants all the base to belong to it, the US can't take all the SMS glory.

No, not when Sybase365 says that 'the most significant uptick occurred in the Asia Pacific region, where it was daytime when people learned of the news.'

Here's a graphic that Sybase provided:



Sybase365 explains that Singapore saw an 85% SMS traffic spike, Australia and New Zealand together saw a 53% spike, Thailand saw a 44% spike and Indonesia registered a 15% spike.

So, the unsurprising trend is clear: if there's a major worldwide event, you can be sure much of the world will get to know about it faster than ever before possible, not just via traditional media broadcasts, but through social networking and the even more personal communications mediums of SMS and MMS messaging.