Flaptor

We decided to scour Trendistic’s archive of hot topics for the year to see what caused the biggest hourly peaks on Twitter. You probably imagine who comes in first place, so let’s do it countdown-style:

Edit: updated due to the sad news about Brittany Murphy’s unexpected passing.

20. Billy Mays

The infomercial king died on June 28th. The hourly peak was 5.85%. He was one of the many celebrities whose death was big on Twitter.

19. Halloween

The celebration had a peak of 7.1% on October 31st.

18. The Yankees

They won the World Series on Nov. 5th and got 7.14% of the mentions.

17. Lakers

The LA team won the NBA Championship on June 14th and the peak was 7.56%

16. Brittany Murphy

Her untimely death reached a peak of 8.01% on December 20th.

15. Facebook

Their “land grab” of vanity urls earned the social network a peak of 8.09% in June.

14. The iPhone

Apple’s announcement of the 3GS garnered a peak of 8.27% on June 8th.

13. Obama

The news of the Nobel Prize being awarded to the US president got Twitter’s attention on Oct. 9th. The peak was 8.39%.

12. aplusk

Actor Ashton Kutcher beat CNN to be the first Twitter user with one million followers. As he reached the milestone on April 17th, 8.5% of the tweets mentioned his username.

11. Patrick Swayze

Twitter lamented the passing of the “Dirty Dancing” and “Point Break” actor on September 14th. The peak was 9.67%

10. Happy Easter

9.78% of Twitter users shared their Easter salutation with their followers.

9. Eurovision

The final of the European song contest obtained 9.93% of the mentions during its broadcast on May 16th.

8. Fireworks

The 4th of July tradition was present on Twitter with 11.7% of the mentions.

7. Jonas Brothers

Teenagers showed their strong presence on Twitter when the pop rock boy band had 12% of Twitter’s attention during their livecast on August 22nd.

6. Thanksgiving

The holiday got 12.1% of Twitter mentions, along with other words such as turkey and full.

5. Demi Lovato

The singer and actress showed the presence of her age group once again with 12.6% of the tweets mentioned her name during her live chat on April 14th.

4. Balloon

The “Balloon Boy” saga unfolded in real-time on Twitter, where it received 12.8% of the mentions on October 15th.

3. Oscars

The award ceremony attracted the interest of 13% of the Twitter community on February 23rd.

2. Kanye

His shenanigans during MTV’s Video Music Awards sparked passionate comments everywhere. On Twitter he had a peak of 14.3% hourly mentions on September 13th. Luckily, he’s going to let us finish.

1. Michael Jackson

The King of Pop’s death on June 25th caused a traffic spike on most news sites. An astonishing 22.6% of Twitter mentioned the passing of one of the most successful entertainers in history. For children born after 2000 this may be the most memorable news story in their lives so far.

Posted in Editorial — December 11th, 2009