Twitter has become the water cooler of the Internet, and is a valuable tool to determine what is being discussed around the world at any moment. It also serves as a unique time capsule. Twitter recently released the Top Twitter Trends of 2009, which provides interesting insight into what mattered to our culture in 2009.
Some of the rankings aren’t a surprise, such as Michael Jackson as the most discussed person, and the Iran Election and Swine Flu being the top news stories. Yet the claimed “social media phenomenons” like New Moon and Paranormal Activity were still trumped by Harry Potter. And there are some notable trends missing from the list, including our new president Barack Obama in the People category and #followfriday in the Hashtags category.
Here is the list of the top trending topics of 2009:
News Events
1. #iranelection
2. Swine Flu
3. Gaza
4. Iran
5. Tehran
6. #swineflu
7. AIG
8. #uksnow
9. Earth Hour
10. #inaug09
People
1. Michael Jackson
2. Susan Boyle
3. Adam Lambert
4. Kobe (Bryant)
5. Chris Brown
6. Chuck Norris
7. Joe Wilson
8. Tiger Woods
9. Christian Bale
10. A-Rod (Alex Rodriguez)
Movies
1. Harry Potter
2. New Moon
3. District 9
4. Paranormal Activity
5. Star Trek
6. True Blood
7. Transformers 2
8. Watchmen
9. Slumdog Millionaire
10. G.I. Joe
TV Shows
1. American Idol
2. Glee
3. Teen Choice Awards
4. SNL (Saturday Night Live)
5. Dollhouse
6. Grey’s Anatomy
7. VMAS (Video Music Awards)
8. #bsg (Battlestar Galatica)
9. BET Awards
10. Lost
Sports (Teams, Events, Leagues)
1. Super Bowl
2. Lakers
3. Wimbledon
4. Cavs (Cleveland Cavaliers)
5. Superbowl
6. Chelsea
7. NFL
8. UFC 100
9. Yankees
10. Liverpool
Technology
1. Google Wave
2. Snow Leopard
3. Tweetdeck
4. Windows 7
5. CES
6. Palm Pre
7. Google Latitude
8. #E3
9. #amazonfail
10. Macworld
Hash Tags
1. #musicmonday
2. #iranelection
3. #sxsw
4. #swineflu
5. #nevertrust
6. #mm
7. #rememberwhen
8. #3drunkwords
9. #unacceptable
10. #iwish
What did you expect to be a top trend for 2009 that didn’t make the list?
Happy New Year!
Remembering 2009 Through Twitter
