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The Most Tweeted Words of 2009

This has been quite the year for Twitter.  Becoming the most popular word of the year, according to the Global Language Monitor, and even a source for breaking news, Twitter is just getting started.  

It’s hard to imagine Twitter without a checking out the current trending topics, but the feature was just released in April along with the Twitter search tool, allowing you to type a certain word or phrase and tweets with those keywords will appear.  Using the trending topics has become a great way to stay up-to-date in pop culture, and news headlines from around the world.  In fact, many Twitter users found out that Michael Jackson had died about 45 minutes before those watching the developments on television.  Twitter was also great to watch during the American Idol finale, as it was the first time American Idol winner, Kris Allen, took the top spot beating out Adam Lambert, who was the number one trending topic every week until that night.  As we near 2010, Twitter has decided to take a look at some of the most interesting trending topics of the year. 

In a blog post released Tuesday afternoon, Twitter said, “we thought it would be interesting to review the topics and issues that captured global attention over the year. In 2009, Twitter’s Trending Topics helped us understand what was happening around the world showing us that people everywhere can be united in concern around important events; excited about a new movie; or geek-out about a major new technology.”

The election in Iran was actually the top trending topic of the year, which should be no surprise since reporters were banned from reporting what was occurring from within the country.  So it was the Iranian people who used Twitter and other social media sites to share with the world what was happening. 

The microblogging website, broke down some of the top trending topics into 7 different categories: news events, people, movies, tv shows, sports, technology, and hashtags.

Of course, while we have already mentioned that the Iran election was the top trending topic of the year, swine flu was the second most tweeted news event from the year. 

It should probably go without saying that Michael Jackson was the most talked about person on Twitter.  In fact, so people were tweeting about Michael Jackson’s death when it happened that the site ended up crashing resulting in the return of the fail whale.  Susan Boyle, who amazed everyone with her performance on Britain’s on Talent, and American Idol contestant, Adam Lambert, followed Jackson in the people category.

One of the biggest surprises for me, was in the movie category.  While Twilight New Moon had the biggest viral video of the year according to The Huffington Post, it was Harry Potter who dominated Twitter, with New Moon following closely behind. 

To see a list of what else made the list be sure to check out Twitter blog or the chart below which comes directly from the post.