The social network site has grown phenomenally in its two year life and millions of people log on to it to find out what their favourite personalities are up to, or just to share their views on events and hot topics.
Twitter is credited with keeping the world informed about the post-election unrest in Iran after an attempted media ban in that country, raising the network's profile and alerting decision-makers worldwide to the potential of the medium.
Taking the top five places for news topics and trends were the election in Iran, swine flu, Gaza, Iran and Tehran.
Earth Hour — a demonstration ahead of the climate-change conference in Copenhagen that required people to turn off all electricity on March 28 last year — also got into the top 10.
The most discussed people were deceased superstar Michael Jackson, followed by Britain's Got Talent contestant Susan Boyle and American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert. Then came Kobe Bryant, the American baseball player for the Los Angeles Lakers, and Chris Brown, the singer accused of beating up his girlfriend, fellow singer Rihanna.
For those who care, Chuck Norris came sixth and disgraced golfer Tiger Woods eighth.
Interestingly, Barack Obama did not make it into the top 10 people list. He first appears on March 20, following one of his few public relations gaffes in which he made the unfortunate comment on a TV show that his bowling score of 129 could be likened to the “Special Olympics or something”. But his Nobel Peace Prize nomination got people twittering.
Top movies were Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince; New Moon, the second in a vampire trilogy by Stephanie Meyer that has a cult following; SA's sci-fi District 9; Paranormal Activity, a US$15000 horror film that grossed millions, surprising everyone; and the new Star Trek movie.
This list — probably more than anything — gives a good indication of Twitter's audience. American Idol, a talent show, took prime position for TV shows, followed by the US musical comedy drama Glee. Next up was Teen Choice Awards, followed by US talk-show Saturday Night Live and then Dollhouse, a US sci-fi series.
In sport, the American football championship, known as the Super Bowl, took first place. In second place was the basketball team Lakers, followed by Wimbledon and the baseball team Cleveland Cavaliers, with English Premier League football club Chelsea in fifth place.
Last year's top tech trends included Google Wave, Google's new communication platform; Snow Leopard, the new Apple Mac operating system; Tweetdeck, a web-based Twitter application that has Facebook and LinkedIn; MySpace integration; Windows 7 and the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show.
Source: Business Day
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