It seems like 2009 was the year of Twitter with it being discussed by every major news outlet as they discussed things like Ashton Kutcher racing CNN to the magical one million followers level, Oprah joining the site, and the number of users experiencing meteoric growth and in general just seemed to be the subject on everyone’s mind in 2009.

The question is, with all of these people on the service, what were they discussing?  Twitter was nice enough to break down the top 10 trending topics in different areas, and they are quite interesting to see what everyone was interested in.

twitterbirdNews Events
1. #iranelection
2. Swine Flu
3. Gaza
4. Iran
5. Tehran
6. #swineflu
7. AIG
8. #uksnow
9. Earth Hour 10. #inaug09

No big surprise on the #iranelection being so high up the list as it seemed that was the only thing being discussed at all back in July.  Being followed up by Swine Flu is no big surprise either as everyone had to spread their bad information somehow!

People
1. Michael Jackson
2. Susan Boyle
3. Adam Lambert
4. Kobe (Bryant)
5. Chris Brown
6. Chuck Norris
7. Joe Wilson
8. Tiger Woods
9. Christian Bale 10. A-Rod (Alex Rodriguez)

I’m actually surprised Susan Boyle is #2 to Michael Jackson’s #1, but #6 is the funny part.  How in the world did Chuck Norris make the list at this point in his career?  Easy, Chuck Norris jokes.

Movies
1. Harry Potter
2. New Moon
3. District 9
4. Paranormal Activity
5. Star Trek
6. True Blood
7. Transformers 2
8. Watchmen
9. Slumdog Millionaire 10. G.I. Joe

Does anyone want to tell Twitter that True Blood is a TV show and not a movie?  Otherwise nothing shocking here except I thought Paranormal Activity would be a bit higher as much as I saw it being discussed.

TV Shows
1. American Idol
2. Glee
3. Teen Choice Awards
4. SNL (Saturday Night Live)
5. Dollhouse
6. Grey’s Anatomy
7. VMAS (Video Music Awards)
8. #bsg (Battlestar Galatica)
9. BET Awards 10. Lost

The Teen Choice Awards came in third?  Either those people who claim teens don’t use Twitter are full of it, or there are a lot of adults watching what is essentially a kids show.  Considering how Glee is doing in the ratings (i.e. only so-so), the Twitter love seems never ending.

Sports (Teams, Events, Leagues)
1. Super Bowl
2. Lakers
3. Wimbledon
4. Cavs (Cleveland Cavaliers)
5. Superbowl
6. Chelsea
7. NFL
8. UFC 100
9. Yankees 10. Liverpool

Wait, I thought Twitter was for nerds, what’s with all of the sports talk?

Technology
1. Google Wave
2. Snow Leopard
3. Tweetdeck
4. Windows 7
5. CES
6. Palm Pre
7. Google Latitude
8. #E3
9. #amazonfail 10. Macworld

It should be noted that probably close to 95 percent of the Google wave tweets were, “Do you have any invites?”

Hash Tags
1. #musicmonday
2. #iranelection
3. #sxsw
4. #swineflu
5. #nevertrust
6. #mm
7. #rememberwhen
8. #3drunkwords
9. #unacceptable 10. #iwish

I guess these are the overall subjects?  Well, glad to see “musicmonday” is so much more important than a country becoming a democracy.

So, what did you feel were the most important subjects on Twitter this year?  Was there any trending topic you were obsessed with?