You're online and you begin browsing Twitter Trends on the Twitter home page (below the search box), or your own Twitter homepage (you've logged-in), or by finding the trends section of your Twitter client.
For those of you who haven't used Twitter, Twitter Trends is a near real-time listing of the most popular topics on Twitter at that given moment. On the Twitter home page you can asee what's "trending" by the minute. You can also see top trends for the day or week. As you browse the list you spot a couple of trends that you don't understand. In other words, why are these trends on the list?
To find the answer as to why something is "trending" is quite simple. Head to What the Trend? It's a free database where you'll find brief explanations about why a topic is trending. The explanations come from users of the site.
The entire What the Trend? database (more on that later) is searchable using a search box located on the upper-right corner any page. You can also filter the current list of trending topics by keyword. Clicking on any topic visible on the home page (you can also click the "explain" button) provides a bunch of data including:
+ The latest tweets on the topic with a hyperlink to the Twitter search engine.
+ The latest news on the topic (via Google News).
+ A history of the explanation (some change quite frequently) along with a map showing the location of the person writing or changing the material.
+ The first time the term of phrase appeared as a trending topic.
+ The most recent time it was a trending topic.
+ The most active trends of the day.
+ A list of the current trending topics.
+ A selection of related trends (if available).
As we said a moment ago, the entire What the Trend? database is searchable and its historic data (allowing you to see the history of a Twitter trend) can be of value to many people in business, advertising, public relations, marketing, journalism (to name just a few areas).
We would love to see What the Trend? add an option to limit a search by date or a range of dates. For example, show only new trending topics from May 1st-May 8th, 2009.
"What the Trend?" is an example of a resource that's not only useful but also fun. You don't even have to be a Twitter user to enjoy monitoring trends and making use of the data the site provides.
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