The super social Super Bowl XLVI

When it comes to broadcast sporting events, nothing draws a bigger TV audience than the Super Bowl. But Super Bowl XLVI set a record beyond regular old TV viewership on Sunday night: NBC reported that more than 2.1 million people streamed the show on computers, tablets and smartphones. In fact, it was the “most watched single-game sports event ever online,” NBC declared. Considering those numbers, it’s not too surprising that Twitter posted some records of its own surrounding the event. During the nail-biting end of the Super Bowl, Twitter reported hitting 12,233 posts per second, the highest number ever for an English-language event in the history of the site. During Madonna’s halftime performance and M.I.A.‘s one-finger salute, the service saw a mind-boggling 10,245 posts per second. It’s “widely recognized in the television industry that Twitter and sites like it act as online water coolers where viewers can comment—and read others’ comments—while they are watching,” explained the New York Times’ Brian Stelter.

Still, some advertisers were still slow to embrace social media, which had some folks scratching their heads. Many of the ads during the Super Bowl had Twitter hashtags or referred people to their Facebook page, but 32% of the 87 ads shown during the game made no online references at all, according to a study from Altimeter. MediaPost’s David Berkowitz wondered why so many marketers “dropped the ball” on social media. “With the surge in tweets and comments during the game, people were clearly active with social media,” he wrote. “I expected more, though, with digital tie-ins that enhanced what was happening on screen.” The New York Times’ Stelter agreed, but pointed to data that suggested many viewers decided not to comment online at all. “To advocates of so-called ‘social TV,’ that’s a sign that there is a lot of room for further growth,” he wrote.

• A Super Bowl Where Viewers Let Their Fingers Do the Talking (NY Times)
  
• A Super Social Bowl (AllThingsD)
  
• Super Bowl advertisers did one thing right, they didn’t drink the social media kool-aid (TheNextWeb)
  
• First Legal Streaming Super Bowl A Success, But Audience Still Denied The Real Show (TechCrunch)
  
• By The Numbers: NBC’s Super Bowl Streams (paidContent)
  
• The Social Bowl That Wasn’t (MediaPost)
  
• Super Bowl XLVI by the (Twitter) numbers (GigaOm)
  
• Madonna’s Super Bowl halftime show divides Twitter (Los Angeles Times)
  
• Two Super Bowl Moments Land in Twitter’s Record Book (Mashable)
  
• Streaming of Super Bowl Sets Record (NY Times)
  
• Web Traffic Dips 20% During Super Bowl, yet 2.1 Million Watch Online (Time Techland)