As December starts to quickly pass us by (as did the entirety of 2012, it feels like) people all around are starting to prepare for either the end of the world or bringing in the New Year. Before we embark on another year in the 21st century, Twitter has revealed a look back at some of the most talked-about events, most retweeted posts and more.
Included in the year wrap-up includes Golden Tweets, Pulse of the planet, Only on Twitter, Trends, New Voices and Your year on Twitter. Partnering with Vizify, a personal website that provides interactive infographics powered by your data, your year on Twitter includes a golden tweet from 2012, a golden follower, key words I tweeted and how many responses, and how many tweets since January 2012. Users have the option to share the golden tweets and most talked-about topics, as well as issue a “Thank you” to your golden follower.
If there was any doubt about the major impact Twitter makes today, the fact that #onlyontwitter exists gets rid of it. This section of the 2012 recap is a list of tweets that came to life organically on Twitter. Included on this list is NASA’s live tweet about the Curiosity rover making its decent on Mars, the International Space Station (ISS) capturing live images of Sandy, tweets from the L2012PoolCam from the London Olympics swimming races, a live-tweet of the climb up Mount Everest, James Cameron’s second-ever dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean (and tweeting from 35,755 feet beneath the sea!) and many more.
The top tweet of the year is by Barack Obama after the 2012 U.S. Presidential Election, which he tweeted, “Four more years,” accompanied by a photo of the first couple hugging. The tweet became the most retweeted of 2012 and the most retweeted ever, sent by people in more than 200 countries around the world.
Another golden tweet of 2012 was teen pop sensation Justin Bieber, who did not tweet about awards, concerts or his tour, but a goodbye to a certain fan. “RIP Avalanna. i love you” was directed to six-year-old Avalanna Routh who suffered from a rare form of brain cancer.
NFL’s TJ Lang also made the 2012 record books, who tweeted about the replacement refs earlier this season. His tweet generated more than one million tweets, becoming the most retweeted of the night and of the NFL season overall (to date). 2012 also meant it was time for the Olympic Games. Held in London, the top Olympic tweet is from Team GB, which received more than 67,000 retweets and other mentions showing support for #OurGreatestTeam.
Last on the Golden Tweets of 2012 list is from prominent Japanese voice actors, Kouichi Yamadera and Rie Tanaka, who announced their marriage. It became the most retweeted message from Japan this year.
Major occurrences in 2012 for which the world came together to witness and discuss on Twitter included the Olympics (150 million tweets), the U.S. election (31 million tweets), the MTV Video Music Awards (14.7 million tweets), the Super Bowl (13.7 million tweets), Superstorm Sandy (20 million tweets), the passing of Whitney Houston (10 million tweets) and SOPA/PIPA (2.5 million tweets/655,500 tweets).
Twitter’s 2012 recap also includes a list of more than 50 high-profile Twitter users who joined in the past year and noteworthy spikes in Twitter conversations, revealing the top trends that captured Twitter’s attention. Tech terms included AT&T, iPhone, Instagram, Skype, iPad, Pinterest, Draw Something, Amazon and Apple.
"As new products were announced (cf. the new iPad, iPhone or Kindle, they saw significant spikes in Twitter discussion," Twitter said. "Other buzzworthy tech terms reflected the social sphere on platforms like Skype and Pinterest, or with a social game (Draw Something)."
Edited by
Allison Boccamazzo
