Pope second biggest Twitter event of all time

Twitter said it had seen some 7 million tweets related to the new pontiff Francis. At its peak, the papal tweeting reached a crescendo of 132,000 tweets per minute.

That's not quite a groundbreaking number, however. President Obama's 2012 election victory set the record at 237,000 tweets per minute back in November. Some 20 million tweets were sent on US election night.

But the election of Pope Francis does clock in as the second biggest Twitter event of all time in the tweets per minute range — ahead of the Spice Girls reunion concert (116,000 tweets per minute) and Usain Bolt's 100 meter gold medal (88,000 tweets per minute), both achieved during the London Olympics last August.

Social media analysis firm Topsy came up with a slightly higher number of 137,000 tweets per minute, and said it saw 4 million tweets in the two hours immediately following that first puff of white smoke from the papal conclave. All in all, those tweets were seen an impressive 15 billion times.

The pope also captured eight out of Twitter's top 10 worldwide trending topics in the hour after his election.

According to the report, 19% came from Argentina, but the US is slightly ahead at 21%. In general, it seems a very healthy majority came from the Americas, the analysis concluded.