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SXSW Julian Assange Grumpy Cat

Edward Snowden racks up triple the mentions of Julian Assange at SXSW – and 20 times the mentions of Grumpy Cat

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By Ishbel Macleod, PR and social media consultant

March 13, 2014 | 3 min read

Over 1.14 million tweets were sent from South by Southwest, research from Hotwire insights and analysis has found, with Edward Snowden being the star of the week, being mentioned in 62,468 tweets.Snowden spoke at SXSW through a Google+ video, filtered through seven proxies to hide his location, and audience members able to ask questions to the PRISM whistleblower through Twitter.Julian Assange also spoke at SXSW and, like Snowden, mentioned feats over the NSA. However, his talk only led to 19,310 Twitter mentions.Hotwire group CEO Brendon Craigie suggested: “With Snowden’s speech highlighting the need to “fix” mass-scale government e-surveillance, it’s unsurprising that his comments on the need for privacy online received massive social media attention as an issue that is front-of-mind for many consumers at the moment.” Other subjects racking up mentions were Oculus Rift, the virtual reality headset (3,051 mentions); Biz Stone, founder of Jelly (3,001 mentions); and Grumpy Cat, the internet meme, with 2,887 mentions.Wearables clocked up 2,941 tweets, while health accounted for 3,493 and Android led to 2,039.

SXSW Julian Assange Grumpy Cat

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