Will and Kate’s WWWedding not only had incredible television ratings, but also made a considerable impact on the Internet through use of streaming media and social networks.  Sandvine’s weekend analysis of Internet traffic data proved to be exciting and offers an array of varied impressions and trends – here are some of the highlights.  Click here for the full report.

Overall, streaming video traffic surged to 26% above normal levels, led by RTMP (Real-Time Messaging Protocol), which doubled; however, YouTube was actually down by 15% the whole day, but briefly got back up to its “normal” levels during the height of the ceremony.  This could be due, in part, to a preference for watching the event on the television, or on media Internet sites, with commentary and additional visuals that YouTube’s basic camera feeds lacked.

Twitter traffic was up more than 30% at the peak of the wedding event and Facebook was also up 10% at the peak ceremony time.  Interestingly, both social media platforms showed similar trending lines, with peaks that seemed to correspond to key wedding highlights: event start (5am), ceremony (6am), and kiss (8:25am) – see figure 1.

In addition, BBC iPlayer traffic went up six times normal levels – see figure 2.  BBC iPlayer is regionally restricted so that only those in the United Kingdom can use it, but diehard royal watchers obviously found mechanisms to get around the limitations.  Looking at figure 2, the local peaks also correspond to the beginning of the ceremony, the carriage ride, and the first kiss.

Lastly, Octoshape (a proprietary streaming media platform, often used for major significant events such as the US Inauguration of President Barack Obama and Michael Jackson’s memorial event) and was up over 6000%.

Sandvine Global Internet Phenomena reports and spotlights are an ongoing series of Internet traffic analysis that has been published since 2002. This spotlight is based on data gathered from a sample of fixed and mobile networks around the world.