http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/08/economist-explains-14
Evidently the motivation for the overhaul was that Twitter was unable to cope with surges of traffic during the 2010 football World Cup, irritating users who were trying to discuss the action while watching it on television. Trumpeting its ability to cope with this latest spike is a good way for Twitter to demonstrate the robustness of its platform as it prepares for a long-anticipated stockmarket flotation. It shows, in short, that Twitter has grown up. It also highlights the popularity of tweeting while watching television, which is how Dick Costolo, Twitter’s chief executive, hopes to make money (he calls Twitter the “second screen”). This week Twitter hired Jennifer Price, a former head of media and entertainment advertising sales at Google, to expand its effort to sell services to television advertisers. By demonstrating Twitter’s reliability and popularity, Japanese anime fans may just have made her job a whole lot easier.
