Obama convention speech breaks new Twitter record

Barack Obama's prime-time address to the nation accepting the Democratic presidential nomination for 2012 broke a new Twitter record Thursday for political traffic, the site said.

"A new record political moment on Twitter: @barackobama drives 52,757 Tweets per minute. Over 9 million Tweets sent about #DNC2012," the micro-blogging site tweeted.

Obama earlier implored Americans to grant him a second term to complete his battered crusade for change, warning of the starkest election choice in a generation.

The race between the president and his Republican challenger, former Massachusetts governor and multi-millionaire businessman Mitt Romney, is neck-and-neck with fewer than nine weeks to go until election day.