The twenty thirteen was a great year for Twitter, we saw that newborn George, the Royal baby, helped the monarchy rack up 40,000 new Twitter followers in one day, and the news like the National Security Agency revelations blow up overnight. But did you remember what were the most interesting and important trending topics on Twitter in 2013. From US Government Shutdown to #ThankYouSachin, and from #DoctorWho to #3eedpains of United Arab Emirates, The Yahoo team decided to look a little closer to find out what the top trending topics from around the globe on Twitter in 2013.
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| Twitter in 2013 - The most followed and important trending topics from around the world |
US #GovernmentShutdown This twitter trend centered on one of the top news stories of the year in the US when the government defectively closed down for several days over its failure to pass a budget.
UK #Doctorwho When the popular UK Television show announced the next Doctor, Twitter saw the hashtag trend like mad.
Brazil #LutoChorao Tributes to Chorao, a Brazilian singer Chorao passed away on March 6, 2013.
Australia #TaylorTicketBump An australian evening radio show used Twitter masterfully in May with a Taylor Swift convert ticket giveaway, eliciting a huge response from fans.
Germany #neuland When German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a press-conference with US President Barack Obama that the internet was like new and "uncharted territory" she paid the price on the internet, including being the butt of a twitter trend joke.
India #ThankYouSachin From the moment Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar announced his retirement from the game in December 2012, he has trended on Twitter. The trend continued when the Little Master - as he is fondly known - played his 200th and final test in November.
France #allo During a confessional reality television show star Nabilla Benattia garnered attention with an unusual series of comments. The Hashtag, meaning hello, comes from the line: Hello girl! girl, are you serious?! You're a girl and you don't have shampoo? Hello?
Spain #relaxingcup During a speech to an Olympic committee making a bid for the 2020 Olympics, the Mayor of Madrid, Ana Botella, had many missteps while attempting to make the speech in English. Her statement "There is nothing quite like a relaxing cup of cafe con leche in Plaza Mayor", spawned a viral frenzy, including a Twitter trend.
Italy #propostashock Italians started this Twitter trend after former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi announced he would abolish a new and unpopular property tax while campaigning for national elections. The proposal was shocking because of the Italian recession and the possible economic repercussions for individual citizens and the country.
South Africa #Krejcir Radovan Krejcir is a notorious Czech businessman living in South Africa who has trended many times over the lat year. Suspicious surround the man who has seen many of his associates murdered, but has never been charged. earlier in the year, he survived an assassination attempt and then later avoided an attack from a parked car outfitted with machine guns.
Singapore #sghaze This Twitter trend started when a haze descended over Singapore due to forest fires started for the purposes of clearing land on the island of Sumatra. Tweets ranged from news reports about the level of pollutants in the air to lighter tweets joking about the haze, including resulting school closures. The haze came back a few months later, causing the trend to make a comeback.
Japan #balus During the final moments of anime movie "Castle in the Sky", Japanese viewers set a Twitter record for tweets per minute by tweeting the last word from the film: "balus"
Argentina #todoslloramoscon "We all cry with", Usually accompanied with a photo, e.g Simba with his fallen father, Mustassa, from The Lion King.
Egypt #Tamarud and #Tagarud During the protests in Egypt that called for President Mohamed Morsi to step down there were two competing hashtags dominating Twitter - the "rebel" campaign-Tamarud and the less popular "anti-rebel" campaign Tagarud.
Saudi Arabia قيادة_26اکتوبر# This hashtag took off on the back of the October 26 driving campaign that called on women in Saudi Arabia to get behind the wheel and defy the ban on driving. Activists used social media including Twitter, YouTube and Facebook to get the message across.
Lebanon #AgainstOrthodoxLaw A political hashtag mean to protest the passing of Orthodox law by the Beirut parliament which would have performed Lebanon into a single electoral district and give individual sects power to elect their own representatives. The Twitter trend was paired with a peaceful protest in Beirut and the law was not passed.
United Arab Emirates #3eedpains This Twitter trend looked forward to the end of Ramadan and the upcoming final feast of "Eid al-Fitr" by jokingly mocking the pains one goes through related to the festivities. e.g being too old to receive money gifts. In Arabic chat speak, the numeric three is used to denote the Arabic letter ع (pronounced ayn) so 3eed refers to Eid.
Twitter Statistics
Beyonce's half-time show at this year's Superbowl saw a record peak of 268K tweets sent per minute.
Twitter is the 10th most popular site on the internet.
There are an estimated 500Million+ tweets per day.
Twitter has 231.7 Million active users worldwide.
USA has the most users, with 52.7 Million people.
Katy Perry most followed with 47.7 million followers.
The average number of followers per user is 208.
The average number of tweets per users is 307.
Most popular worldwide hashtags
#iOS7
#Royalbaby
#Sharknado
#BelibersWantToBeYourSmileJustin
#Phillipines
#TwitterIPO
#RIPCoryMonteith
#Ashes
#HannahMontanaMemories
#NSA
#Kenya
Twitter image by: v3.co.uk
