SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Moments after Uruguayan striker Luis Suarez sunk his teeth into an opposing Italian player during Tuesday’s World Cup match-up, brands were using the incident to market burgers on Twitter.
Suarez’s mid-game snack -and Italian forward Mario Balotelli’s Twitter plea for a kiss on the cheek from Queen Elizabeth- drew massive online attention this week as the initial group stage matches played out. More than 300 million tweets have been sent about the World Cup so far, and Google has logged over 1.1 billion searches related to the world’s most popular sporting event.
While the tournament’s June 12 kickoff game between Brazil and Croatia still drew the most tweets of any match, people paid more attention to this week’s games, at least as measured by matches they viewed online.
Here’s a look at how the World Cup fared online this week:
– STREAMING TRAFFIC SOARS