So why is Tweeting these big moments so huge in Japan? Twitter writes:
On Oshogatsu (Japanese New Year), Japan virtually shuts down as people spend the day with family and the people with whom they are closest. People make it a point to call their friends and connect with everyone they know to celebrate. With a population of over 127 million, Japanese mobile networks have been known to crash under the strain of this collective cheer. This year, on New Year’s Eve, many people turned to Twitter to celebrate.
But still, Twitter is bigger in the United States and the United States is bigger than Japan, so are we just too lazy to Tweet? No, it undoubtedly has more to do with the fact that we have so many timezones in this country. That means New Year’s is staggered over three (four with Hawaii) different big moments. As Twitter notes, “The East coast time zone alone almost amassed the same amount of Tweets at its peak of 3,000 TPS as the entire world did during the peak moment of the World Cup.” In other words, if the U.S. was one big timezone, we would likely hold the record.
Check out the awesome Tweet density video below for New Year’s. Note the huge glow over Tokyo early on. It’s alive!

Authors: MG Siegler