The company has traditionally done a good job spreading announcements throughout the calendar, but aside from an iPad event in Chicago and a MacBook refresh a few months back, there's been little news out of the company.
But even though word of Mr. Giuliani's condition had begun to spread, his announcement stunned many New Yorkers and set off expressions of sympathy, including one from Hillary Rodham Clinton, but also furious speculation about how the cancer would affect his campaign.
She forwarded the e-mail widely, and the announcement spread virally.
The announcement spread quickly around the tech community, leading many to wonder what the implications of the initiative would be.
Initially, word spread that the announcement would be made Tuesday -- a plan that was rumored to have been delayed because of the threat of a snowstorm -- and Thursday, which turned out to be impractical because the members of the House, including Mr. Menendez, were needed in Washington for a vote on taxes.
Before Santorum spoke, news of his surprise announcement spread quickly on Twitter, and comments from the "Twitterverse" (which Santorum referenced in his speech) ranged from well-wishes for his daughter to jokes about his "Google problem".
In an announcement spread out over three tweets last week, Trump told the estimated 15,500 active-duty and reserve transgender personnel serving in the armed forces that they were a burden, and that they created "tremendous medical costs and disruption" for the military.
"Mic checks" became the consensus method of circulating announcements, spread through the crowd by people repeating, phrase by phrase, what a speaker had said to others around them, compelling everyone, as it were, to speak in one voice.
Last week, after Austria placed a cap on the number of refugees it would take, aid workers said such announcements spread panic among refugees and made them more desperate to make their journeys before Europe's doors closed.
The Cocteau Twins had been apart for seven years, the mystique they had attained during their lifetime gradually growing and their influence spreading, when the announcement came that they were to reform.
