Twitter Trending Topics

On Twitter the "Trending Topics" feature -- the list of the most-discussed items on Twitter -- has been a source of amusement and annoyance to me. Amusement because it's interesting to see what subjects are being talked about. Annoyance because made-up "topics" lead to a greater volume of sometimes inane, sometimes stupid posts in my Twitter feed. Example: right now one of the leaders in the United States is #nowthatsghetto -- so there are a series of posts such as:

"yo moms got empty Henny bottles around her bedroom............#nowthatsghetto"
"#nowthatsghetto the fact that I can get my hair gel, toothpaste and a #6 Chinese food combo all from the same quick mart"
"claiming you have celebrity friends when in reality, you're just they're Facebook fan ......#nowthatsghetto."

All of those are actual tweets I found during a search, but at times they'll come up in my feed if someone I'm following decides to run with it. (I'm looking at you, injured Eagles offensive lineman Shawn Andrews!) Sometimes they're clever, but often they're just variations on the same idea and I find it more annoying than anything else.

Anyway, Twitter has tweaked its service so you can set the Trending Topics that show up on your page to a specific location. You can see what's trending worldwide; in the countries of Brazil, Canada, Ireland, Mexico, the United Kingdom or the United States; or in one of 15 cities: Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Houston, London, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, San Antonio, San Francisco, Seattle, São Paulo and Washington, D.C. Nice to know Philly made the cut, so I thought I'd do a comparison of what's trending here as compared to the hot topics for the USA, Canada and the world. (Some other time I may do a comparison between various cities.)

Worldwide:

* #nowplaying
* Haiti
* iTampon - According to Twitter: "People are making a joke due to unfortunate word associations in the name of Apple's new tablet, the iPad." (No, really?)
* #cbb7 - (No Twitter explanation but if you see the item directly below, you can guess what CBB stands for.)
* Davina - "Davina McCall, host of Celebrity Big Brother (UK), entered the house tonight in disguise."
* Union (for President Obama's State of the Union speech tonight)
* Don’t Ask
* #apple
* Ugly Betty (canceled by ABC, those bastards!)
* Don't Tell

It's not an exact science -- Twitter is separating the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" topic (Obama is reportedly going to call for the anti-gay military policy to be repealed in his speech tonight -- I wonder why this is in the top 10 worldwide but not in the USA?)

United States:

* #itampon
* #ipad
* #nowthatsghetto (See above.)
* Apple iPad
* iBooks
* MaxiPad (See iTampon)
* Union address
* MadTV
* iTablet
* Howard Zinn

Canada:

* #itampon
* Apple iPad
* MadTV
* #Haiti
* Ugly Betty
* Multitasking
* #yeg (Huh?)
* Canadian
* Mass Effect
* Olympics

Philadelphia:

* #itampon
* #applesnextproduct
* #NewAppleProducts
* Apple iPad
* Haiti
* Ugly Betty
* Tyra
* Oprah
* Apple
* Device

Again, probably a Twitter issue that all of the variations on "Apple" are appearing separately instead of as one topic...and how is "device" a topic?