Twitter Trending Topics History

I became really curious about the trending topics feature on Twitter.  It would be very useful to actually record which trends make it to the top 10 list, and for how long they stay in that list.  So I decided to find out.  I wrote a script that records what the top 10 trends are each minute, noting when a topic falls off the list and when new topics emerge.  The results are pretty interesting.

The following data set was taken over the period of five days.  During which, several topics dominated the list.  Specifically, two topics: #NowPlaying, and Justin Bieber.  #NowPlaying was always trending.  It looks like it only fell off the top ten once, which makes it the only trend that has done that.  Justin Bieber on the other hand, was constantly off and on the top ten list.  It still managed to get just as much time too.

What’s even more interesting to think about is what does this data mean in the big picture?  Will these trends continually do well, or are they just hot topics? That’s what this script could help answer.

Demonstration

Click here for a demo of the script.  There are four modes:

• Current – the current trends in the top 10 list in real-time
• Longest Running – trends sorted by how long they have been on the top trend list
• Most Frequent – trends sorted by how many times they have been on the top trend list
• History – trends listed in chronological order based on when they first appeared on the top trend list

Pitfalls

There a few issues with the script.  The first is: what to do when Twitter goes down?  This one seems pretty easy though.  I just don’t record that there was any top ten at all.  It gives the current top trends a free pass though.

The second is that my script initially treated “#FF” and “#ff” as two different topics.  Those trends should be considered the same.  Therefore, you’ll see all trends in the Longest Running and Most Frequent  modes in all lowercase.

Lastly, it seems the script does not like certain characters.  Seeing how I don’t really intend on using this script for any professional purposes, I’m willing to live with it.