Oops! ADP data released earlier than expected on Twitter
Before any news source could break the news about the ADP's November payroll data, a small financial data technology company was the first to report the information on Twitter, four minutes earlier than the scheduled press release time of 8:15 a.m.
Investors who were poking through Twitter at 8:11 a.m. would have had a four-minute advantage with Selerity's tweet on the latest figures:
An ADP spokeswoman told CNBC that they are continuing to investigate what happened.
The early release is not due to a leak from ADP, but rather, from the ADP website that seems to have released the information early, said Ryan Terpstra, CEO of Selerity. He explained that this was made possible through Selerity's real time search technology that monitors sources of breaking news like ADP. The company's automated system, which uses natural language processing technology understands human text, determined that the ADP source was valid, synthesized the information in the ADP release, and wrote a Tweet within sub-seconds.
"As soon as market moving information is picked up, the automated system creates a flash news headline that we push out instantly on Twitter," Terpstra said. "We're different from other financial news products and wires in that we don't have a terminal product where there may be a delay."
Read More Cramer: If CEO Costolo stepped down, Twitter would be at $55
Following the early report of the ADP data on Twitter, Selerity gained many new followers, Terpstra said. The company currently has 892 followers.
Read MoreSnapchat for CEOs launched
"We're one of the few breaking news sources on Twitter ... a lot of people are trying to understand how it works," he said.
Terpstra said this type of early release of market moving information has occurred before. In January 2011, Selerity released Microsoft's earnings report an hour before the supposed release time.