Twitter has unveiled its top trends of 2012, featuring the first tweet from Mars Curiosity rover to James Cameron’s Tweet from the bottom of the ocean.
The top two tweets of the year were from Barack Obama and Justin Beiber, with Beiber’s contribution being a goodbye well-wishing for a young fan that passed away due to a rare brain cancer.
‘Three Honorable Mentions’ included a word from Packers football player TJ Lang about the Replacement Referees incident, another from Team GB about how Britain had their most successful Olympics in 104 years, and a massive tweet from Anime voice actor Koichi Yamadera about marrying fellow voice actor Rie Tanaka.
Watch a video from Twitter looking back at 2012:
This year, Twitter introduced a Pulse of the Planet listing showing off some of the biggest conversations had in Twitter over the months leading up to 2013.
This list includes SOPA/PIPA, Whitney Houston’s passing, Anime hit “Summer Wars”, UEFA Champions League Semi-Final, Superstorm Sandy, the Euro 2012 match lineup, the USA Super Bowl, the MTV Video Music Awards, the USA Presidential Election, and the Summer Olympics.
An “Only on Twitter” collection includes the Mars Curiosity landing, the ISS collection of images of Superstorm Sandy, live tweets from an underwater camera taking photos from the bottom of the pool at the London Olympics, live tweets made by Japanese mountaineer Nobukazu Kuriki on his way up Mount Everest, massive amounts of photos from fans watching the space shuttle Enveavour on its final ride to Los Angeles, and of course the tweet from James Cameron as he reached the deepest part of the ocean at 35,755 feet below.
Twitter listed many tweets for its 2012 trends recap. Here are some that generated the most retweets and “came to life organically” on Twitter:
• “@NASAJPL live-tweeted as the Curiosity rover made its descent onto the Red Planet. The #JPL team shared Twitter updates with the world directly from the shuttle’s command centre.
• “The International Space Station (ISS) captured live images of Sandy as it tore its way up the East Coast of the US. As they followed the superstorm from their unique vantage point, astronauts tweeted live images to the world.
• “@L2012PoolCam tweeted live images from underneath the water during the London Olympics swimming races. The swimmers dove, raced, flipped and crossed the finish line right in front of us.
• “Blockbuster movie director James Cameron took the second-ever dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, and became the first person to send a Tweet from 35,755 feet beneath the sea.
• “Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, live-tweeted from the stage at the 2012 Opening Ceremony. A London native, his Tweet was ‘for everyone.’
• “Known for his public stands against Chinese government repression, artist Ai Weiwei has been placed under house arrest and is not allowed to travel outside China. He has turned to the Internet, and in particular to Twitter, to engage with the world. As he often says, “Twitter is [my] favourite city.'”
Most tweets per second
• Olympics: David Cameron, Samantha Cameron and Boris Johnson dancing together at the Olympic closing ceremony (Sunday, August 12)
• Euro 2012: England vs Italy, England lose on penalties (Sunday, June 24)
X Factor: James Arthur and Ella Henderson in bottom two, Ella voted off (Sunday, November 18)
• Olympics: Bolt wins the Men’s 100 Meters Olympic final (Sunday August 5)
• Olympics: Mr Bean’s Chariots of Fire sketch in the Opening Ceremony (Friday, July 27)
• X Factor: Rylan and Kye deadlock (Sunday, November 4)
• Euro 2012: England vs Sweden, Theo Walcott’s goal to bring England level at 2-2
• X Factor: Gary Barlow storms off X Factor as Carolynne Poole was voted off in favour of Rylan (Sunday October 7)
• Euro 2012: England vs France, Joleon Lescott’s goal put England up 1-0 (Monday June 11)
• Champions League: Man City vs Real Madrid, Cristiano’s Ronaldo’s goal put Real 3-2 ahead, ultimately resulting in a victory (Tuesday September 18)
Sport
#Paralympics
#LFC
#MUFC
Olympics
Liverpool
Arsenal
#WWE
Leeds
#COYS
#AFC
Politics
David Cameron
Tory
Tories
Labour
Ed Miliband
Boris Johnson
Mitt Romney
Boris
Romney
Nick Clegg
Issues
NHS
Syria
#Assange
Prince Harry
Samantha Brick
#NHS
Afghanistan
VAT
Leveson
Rebekah Brooks
Film
The Hunger Games
James Bond
#Skyfall
Star Wars
The Avengers
The Dark Knight Rises
Prometheus
Dark Shadows
The Artist
Harry Potter
Music artists
Rick Ross
Nicki Minaj
Taylor Swift
Lana Del Rey
JLS
Chris Brown
Rita Ora
Madonna
Lil Wayne
Jessie J
TV programmes
Jeremy Kyle
Game of Thrones
American Dad
#EastEnders
Family Guy
Russell Howard
#JeremyKyle
#Hollyoaks
#Newsnight
#CBB
Culture
#Photography
#Music
#Travel
#EdFringe
#Fashion
#Art
#LFW
2012 mtv video music awards
V Festival
#design
Conversation topics
#nowplaying
#news
#quote
#music
#JustSaying
#FollowFriday
#Yolo
#Insomnia
#Fail
#Excited
View the official Twitter 2012 page here
