We might have an explanation for 'The Great Twitter Spike'

While unofficial, it seems a contest could have been the cause

Last week, just for kicks, we explored this question posed by the Web site performance monitoring company Pingdom: What caused a significant traffic spike on Twitter the evening of Tuesday, Oct. 27?

Pingdom wrote: "Whatever happened on the evening of Oct. 27, U.S. time, made a big mark on Twitter. The increase, in terms of scale, was close to the amount of tweets produced by the rest of the world. (Can some Americans chime in on this? We here at Pingdom are based in Sweden...)"

Pingdom speculated that a Major League Baseball game or hit U.S. television program may have been the cause, but way too much searching on my part failed to turn up evidence of either. Readers suggested it might have been chatter about the opening night of the National Basketball Association season or an Ultimate Fighting Championship match. Doubt it.

A narcissistic Twitter follower of mine even offered that the cause may have been that Oct. 27 is his birthday. ... I'm pretty sure he was joking.

No, it was reader George Kurian who seems to have landed upon the most likely explanation: A contest jointly sponsored by the world's most annoying online travel agency, Orbitz, and Twitter itself. From the contest rules on the Orbitz Blog:

Tweets for tickets is back by popular demand, and this time we're upping the ante. Instead of one round-trip airline voucher, we are giving away 10.

To enter for a chance to win one of 10 round-trip coach-class airfare vouchers valid for travel in the domestic United States in the Orbitz Twitter Giveaway, here's what you've got to do:

Start following Orbitz on Twitter.com, if you're not doing so already. Retweet that day's contest message, which will be posted on the @Orbitz Twitter page. We'll announce the winners on the @Orbitz Twitter page. If it's you, make sure to send a direct message via Twitter within 48 hours. Remember, all entries must be received by 11:59 p.m. CT on October 27, 2009.

Oh, yes, I definitely could see the allure of 10 free airline tickets stirring the Twitter masses to mass action; it oftens takes much less. And, the fact that contestants had to actually use Twitter -- multiple times -- in order to participate would suggest that a traffic spike was more than possible.

While we cannot call this explanation confirmed -- in large part because Twitter's public relations department continues to be as elusive as its revenue model -- I'm standing behind it until someone comes up with something better.

• Orbitz
• Twitter