After two gangbuster years, Twitter declines to release numbers on 2015 Oscars

There are no better moments for Twitter than big, global live events like the Academy Awards. People huddle around TV screens, having found that they can be part of a worldwide snarkfest that transcends culture and languages as they tweet on their smartphones and laptops.

So, how big were the Oscars for Twitter last night? We don’t know, because so far, Twitter isn’t saying.

In a blog post recapping the highlights from the show, the company didn’t include data about the volume of tweets.

That may not mean anything, of course. But it is a notable departure from the last two years when Twitter was quick to share the info about how much people were tweeting about the Oscars:

Feb. 25, 2013: “All in all, there were 8.9 million Tweets about the 85th Academy Awards: 2.1 million during the red carpet, and 6.8 million during the awards show.”

March 3, 2014: “During the live show (8:30 p.m.-12:00 midnight ET) there were more than 14.7 million Tweets around the world containing terms related to the telecast. Including the red carpet and conversation immediately following the show (5:30 p.m.-12:10 a.m. ET), there were 17.1 million Oscar-related Tweets.”

And what about the numbers for 2015? Crickets.

Of course, it’s possible Twitter will update the post later. But the post today went live about the same time as the posts the two previous years that did include numbers.

The company remains under pressure to find ways to grow users, engagement and revenue. Any sign that such signature events like the Oscars aren’t generating big numbers for Twitter could be troublesome.

However, Twitter did offer an embeddable heat map showing how the country live tweeted the ceremony. And a glance at the heat map shows that if there was a slump in tweets, we may have Montana to blame. While the state is large but sparsely populated, it still seems its citizens failed to rouse from their bison-burger induced stupor except for a brief moment when the winners for hair and makeup were announced.