Twitter Explodes Over Paul Ryan VP Announcement Ryan's VP Twitter handle created Aug. 2, same day as similar Rubio and Pawlenty handles By Charlie Warzel

Turns out searching Twitter handles may have been the best way to predict Mitt Romney's choice for vice president. While many in the media delved into Wikipedia for clues as to Romney's running mate, a cursory Twitter search shows that newly announced VP candidate Paul Ryan's Twitter handle (@PaulRyanVP) was created only a few days ago—Aug. 2, to be exact. Interestingly enough, using the same 'FirstLastVP' nomenclature, accounts for 'TimPawlentyVP' and 'MarcoRubioVP' were also made on the same day (Aug. 2). Perhaps the move was to throw the media off the scent, but since searches for 'BobbyJindalVP' and 'ChrisChristieVP' turned up no results, there is a possibility that About the Author Charlie Warzel is a staff writer for Adweek. @cwarzel .@PaulRyanVP, @TimPawlentyVP, and @MarcoRubioVP accounts were all created on August 2nd, 2012...coincidence...I doubt it... Reply Retweet Favorite @PaulRyanVP Join America’s Comeback Team tomorrow in Waukesha, WI. Doors open at 4pm, RSVP and get tickets here http://t.co/6RpAbVuc Reply Retweet Favorite I'm honored to join @MittRomney on America's Comeback Team. http://t.co/8gid73By #RomneyRyan2012 Reply Retweet Favorite @MittRomneyVP as of Aug. 2, Ryan, Pawlenty, and Rubio were all still in play. There is, of course, also the possibility that the creation of the handles is a coincidence, but that appears unlikely. As expected, once the news broke in the early hours of Saturday morning, Twitter erupted with an astounding 865 tweets per minute around 1:10 AM EST, according to the official @gov Twitter account. As morning rolled around, tweets peaked as Romney officially announced his running mate around 9:29 AM EST, at a rate of 3,749 tweets per minute. According to Topsy's Twitter analytics mentions of 'Paul Ryan' have cooled down considerably since 9:45 AM EST, when the keywords 'Paul Ryan' were mentioned over 45,000 times. As of 2:45 PM EST on Saturday, mentions for the keywords 'Paul Ryan' are down to around 14,000. It is important to remember that the figure reflects the number of mentions for the keywords 'Paul Ryan' in that particular minute, so the frequency, while much lower, is still very impressive.