Going for Broke: Chartbeat’s Election Day by the Numbers

On our way to a record-breaking day

Chartbeat’s HQ is still sporting decorations from last night’s Election Day festivities (sliders, beer, plus tons of data = how Chartnerds like to party), and we’re still recovering from a data-filled, concurrent cap busting, news coverage-crazed 24 hours.

The night by the numbers

  • 8,853,239– Chartbeat’s record aggregate number of concurrents yesterday
  • 21– Chartteam members at the office late last night for support and shenanigans
  • 23.5%– Increase in Chartbeat aggregate concurrents for Election Day coverage over our previous record max concurrents for Sandy coverage
  • 50/50– Number of state electoral results Nate Silver correctly predicted
  • 200,000– Requests/second for Chartbeat beacon traffic
  • 30– Election Night survival goody bags passed out to some hardworking clients
  • 2– Canine guests at our Election Day party

While we could talk for hours about how many clients saw amazing traffic last night or about how shiny Joe Biden’s teeth are, the Chartteam is pretty excited about how many people turned to online media for answers about yesterday’s election coverage. Despite the reigning popularity of TV coverage, it’s awesome that online news sources are really getting in the game with engaging features, quality content, and rapid reactions to electoral developments.

Predictable? Yes and no.

Nate Silver’s magic map

We discussed prediction earlier this week, and a day after the election, predictions–correct or otherwise–are certainly seen in a different light. Today few people are getting more attention than Nate Silver of The New York Times‘s FiveThirtyEight Blog, who accurately predicted every state’s electoral outcome in this election. Interestingly enough, Silver’s awesome projections don’t really say much about the validity of predictions, but rather, Silver’s state-by-state forecast demonstrates successful statistical modeling (confession: the Chartteam <3 statistical models).

Red or blue, it’s indisputable that data had a huge role in this election. The interactive online maps you played with, the fancy touchscreens CNN whipped out last night, the projections presented by election analysts–they shared a common origin of data– and this election showed that online media is striving to make data more and more accessible to people.

But did it beat Sandy’s breaking news?

And people were hungry for data–well, and hungry for election information in general. How hungry? Chew on this: Chartbeat had a record aggregate total of over 8.5 million concurrent visits yesterday. That’s 1.5 MILLION more concurrents than the Sandy-related peak traffic we experienced last week. Pretty nuts, right?

There’s probably a ton to learn from such an epic day of traffic and engagement, and hopefully we’ll be sharing these insights with you once we’ve worked our way through all this data. For now, high fives to all our clients who worked long and hard yesterday to keep us up-to-date about election results.

We’re big fans of Election Day parties. And cupcakes.
Anxiously awaiting the results


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