Facebook has released its list of global status trends for 2010.
Facebook analysed status updates across 236 countries, comparing the rate at which each phrase occurred in 2010 compared to 2009.
And here they are;
- HMU – The number one trending phrase for for 2010 was HMU (shorthand for “hit me up”) No, we hadn’t heard of it either.
- World Cup – Not surprisingly the World Cup received a lot of attention. The start of the tournament and the final gathered the most attention, with 1.5 million and 1.3 million mentions, respectively, of “World Cup” and countless more mentions of teams and players. At key moments over the course of the games, as many as 50 percent of all status updates were related to them.
- Movies – the top five movies talked about on Facebook in 2010 were, in this order; “Toy Story 3,” “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse,” “Inception,” “Alice in Wonderland” and “Iron Man 2”.
- iPad and iPhone 4 – These two objects of desire from Apple combined to account for over 25 million posts during the year.
- Haiti – First-hand reports of the earthquake peaked four minutes after the quake hit, at a rate of 120 a minute. It took another couple of hours for the world to learn of the disaster, and a day later people on Facebook were discussing it at a peak rate of 1,800 posts per minute.
- Justin Bieber – There’s no escaping Bieber fever. 2010 was a standout year for the 15-year-old pop sensation, represented by the amount of buzz generated by his fans on Facebook.
- Games on Facebook – Facebook gaming has grown hugely in popularity in 2010. Popular with those playing the games, not so much with the people who’s walls are littered with FarmVille updates. You know who you are.
- Chilean Miners – The story of the 33 Chilean miners trapped underground for 69 days captivated the world. Looking at the mentions of miners and the Spanish “mineros,” Facebook saw three distinct bursts of activity – When the mine first collapsed, a week later and when the ordeal finally ended. Millions of people posted about it. In fact, Facebook reports 33 unique spikes in activity – one for each of the rescued miners.
- Airplanes – in 2010, the word “airplanes” burst onto the scene thanks to the lyrics of the song “Airplanes” by B.o.B. feat. Hayley Williams. Specifically, people were quoting the line, “Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars…” – you know the one.
- 2011 – This year, people have been talking about next year. Particularly in the lead up to the turn of the new year.
These trends are interesting when compared to the 2010 Twitter trends.
The biggest Twitter trend of 2010 was “Gulf Oil Spill”, interestingly this did not even register on the list of Facebook trends. This confirms that the two different social networks are used by different people for different purposes. Twitter being news lead and Facebook being more entertainment focused.
However, there were some similarities between the two sets of trends – World Cup, Haiti, iPad, Justin Bieber and the movie, Inception featured in both lists.
What are your predictions for trends in 2011?
