Twitter looks back at the top topics of 2011
The company is continuing its year in review with a look at some of the events and hashtags that shaped discussions on the service this year. Egypt and Apple's Mac App Store were just two of the popular topics.
Twitter's year in review series is back, and this time, the company has decided to examine the hot topics that bounced around the social network this year.
Twitter's top hashtags were a mix of news and memes. According to the company, "#egypt" was the top hashtag this year, reflecting the interest users had in that country's uprising. However, the next three hashtags--"#tigerblood," "#threewordstoliveby," and "#idontunderstandwhy"--were memes that, as most Twitter users know, were just about everywhere they turned during different parts of the year.
Twitter also divulged the top topics across a wide array of areas, including technology, movies, sports, and more. On the technology front, Apple's Mac App Store was the most-discussed topic this year, followed by the Sony NGP (now known as the PlayStation Vita), Guitar Hero, and Mozilla Firefox. Duke Nukem Forever rounded out the top five, inching out the iPad and iPhone for the spot.
In world news, Hosni Mubarak's resignation was the top topic, followed by the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan. And as one might expect from the popularity of the "#tigerblood" hashtag, Charlie Sheen was this year's most-discussed actor on Twitter.
Here are some of the other topics Twitter users obsessed over this year:
- "Thor" was the top movie topic, while "Pretty Little Liars" took the top honors for television.
- The Texas Rangers' strong showing in the 2011 playoffs helped the team become the top baseball topic.
- Rebecca Black, the young singer who gained fame with her song "Friday," was the top music-related topic this year.
Twitter's Hot Topics list is the latest data dump from the social network's year in review series. Last week, the company examined the year's top stories. Twitter plans to provide more insight into what made its social network tick this year with the release of its top tweets, among other data, in the coming days.