A Year in Twitter

As this year draws to a close, I thought I'd try and sum up the last year in a succinct fashion. After all, I'm lazy, and you're all busy preparing for the state mandated boozefest tomorrow evening. With that in mind, I thought what better way to recount the year than through Twitter? Can't get more succinct than that. Plus, my little sister bought me A Twitter Year: 365 Days in 140 Characters by Kate Bussman. Having read it while on my Christmas holidays, I found it was a repository of both fascinating and slightly bizarre factoids. Let me regale you with some of the things I have learnt from this tome of wisdom.

1. The site was first rolled out to the public on 15th July 2006, and so is merely five years old. Amazing to think that when you realise the influence it now holds, isn't it?

2. Funny or Die (@funnyordie) has the most influential Twitter account. Lord Voldemort (@lord_voldemort7) has the 7th most influential account.

3. Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) and Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) have more followers than Barack Obama (@barackobama). Weep for humanity.

4. On the 13th October 2010, Greater Manchester Police decided to tweet every single 999 call they received that day. 3205 tweets were recorded, including one from a woman who had put the wrong fuel in her car. Thousands of followers were gained and sane people everywhere worried for the state of the human race.

5. Twitter was a major tool in the ousting of Hosni Mubarak, who had been president of Egypt for forty years. The #jan25 hashtag began making the rounds, helping people follow news of what was happening in the country. Eventually the campaign was successful, when Mubarak reluctantly stepped down as president on the 11th Feburary 2011.

6. Ryan Giggs obtained a superinjunction this year to stop the press revealing his affair with Imogen Thomas (You know, that girl off that thing with the face). However, that was no obstacle to Twitter users, who tweeted his name 75,000 times before he was named in parliament.

7. During the riots throughout England this summer, news of what was happening spread through Twitter often before it got to the main news channels. In response to the destruction caused, the #riotcleanup hashtag and corresponding @riotcleanup account helped do gooders rally together to clean up their streets, an example of social media being put to valuable use.

8. The British Monarchy have two official Twitter accounts, @BritishMonarchy and @ClarenceHouse. However, there are 26 fake royal feeds, including @Queen_UK, @TheDukeofHazard, and @DianaInHeaven. The fake Twitter Queen even has her own book out, called Gin O'Clock.

9. The Royal Wedding instigated 5.8 million tweets in four days, including this fantastic exchange:

10. Both Run of Run-DMC and MCHammer are now ordained ministers, and take to Twitter as @RevRunWisdom and @MCHammer respectively to preach words of wisdom and spirituality. Rev Run has more followers than the Dalai Lama. The mind boggles.

I might do a second part to this, as there's so many more factoids that I haven't had room for this week. Until then, enjoy your new year's eve, don't drink and drive, and ALWAYS keep an eye on your drink. You never know what it might do.