The Top 10 Twitter Trends This Week [CHART]

Twitter was abuzz this week with chatter about the iPad, performances at The Grammys and relief efforts in Haiti.

Some of the top trends were predictable (Mashable’s Ben Parr successfully guessed at four of the 10 last week), while others were unexpected.

The tendency for Twitter users to sign off with “Goodnight” has made that a top topic this week, while the “Retweet If” meme gathered momentum. Meanwhile, the Super Bowl is the dominant topic today, although these stats were compiled before the big game: its true popularity will be seen in next week’s list.

Here’s a roundup of the top 10 topics on Twitter this week, courtesy of our friends at WhatTheTrend. As this is a topical list, hashtag memes like “#UKnowUBrokeWhen” and “#thatsanono” are not included.

You can find previous weeks’ Twitter trends in our Twitter Topics section.

Top Twitter Topics This Week

RankTopicTop Index This WeekChangeDescription#1iPad1Steve Jobs, head of Apple, announced the iPad on 1/27/10. It will be available for purchase in March, 2010. On the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards Show, Steven Colbert pulled an iPad out of his jacket (Trends: iPad, Apple iPad)#2GrammysThe 52nd Annual Grammy Awards aired on 1/31/10 with great performances from Lady GaGa, Beyonce, Pink, Taylor, Drake, Wayne, Eminem, and a wonderful MJ tribute. (Trends: Grammys, Lady GaGa, Taylor Swift, Beyonce, #goodlucktaylor, Grammy’s, Grammy Awards, Kanye, Drake, Eminem, American Idiot, MJ’s, Ciara, Maxwell, Eminem)#3Haiti2-1On January 12, 2010 an earthquake measured at 7.3 devastated the country’s capital. A week later, on the 20th, an aftershock of magnitude 6.1 struck. People are Tweeting about other charitable efforts along with recordings of song to support relief.#4Shorty
Award2The Second Annual Shorty Awards honor the most popular producers of short content on Twitter. Award winners are recognized in 26 official and 100s of user generated categories. This topic first trended when nominations were submitted and now people are casting votes for different categories.#5Follow
Friday2Follow Friday is a tradition where people tweet the names of others who they believe are fun/interesting to follow.#6Happy
Groundhog Day2Groundhog day is an American tradition. A groundhog is used to determine whether we have 6 more weeks of winter due to the animal seeing his shadow after emerging from his burrow. (Trends: Happy Groundhog Day, Punxsutawney Phil)#7Super Bowl4-3The Indianapolis Colts play the New Orleans Saints in Super Bowl XLIV, the culmination of a season of National League Football play. The Super Bowl is treated almost as a holiday in the United States, with many people holding parties, some just to watch the commercials during the game.#8Goodnight5Usually a person’s last tweet of the day. They’re telling us they’re going to sleep now and wishing us the traditional ‘Goodnight’. This can trend at many different times due to the different time-zones of Twitter users.#9Retweet
If3Simple eme: "Retweet if x" where "x" could be "Crazy for Justin Bieber" or, at this point, anything. Also, there is a meme "Retweet if #idothat2"#10Lost3The two hour premiere of Lost’s sixth and final season aired 2/2 on ABC in the USA. (Preceded by an hour long recap of the first five seasons.)

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