Top Twitter trends in 2010: Gulf oil spill, FIFA World Cup, 'Inception'

(Twitter)

Users of social networking site Twitter posted an astounding 25 billion tweets in 2010 as they followed the year's biggest events, shared news headlines, wrote micro reviews of the latest films, and told the world just what they were thinking or feeling with their 140 characters.

"From earthquakes and politics to popstars and hashtags, Twitter Trends are a window into what the world is talking about," said Twitter in a December 13 blog post announcing the biggest Twitter trends of the year.  
The list of top trends "demonstrates the power of turning any event or story into a shared experience," writes Twitter.

The "Gulf Oil Spill" tops Twitter's trends for 2010, closely followed by the FIFA World Cup.

Science fiction movie Inception beat Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows and Apple's iPad came out one place ahead of Google's Android platform.

Swarms of teenage girls will be happy to hear that their idol, Canadian pop singer Justin Bieber, also made in into the list in eighth place.

Top 10 Twitter Trends of 2010

1. Gulf Oil Spill
2. FIFA World Cup
3. Inception
4. Haiti Earthquake
5. Vuvuzela
6. Apple iPad
7. Google Android
8. Justin Bieber
9. Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows
10. Pulpo Paul

A full list of most popular terms by category can be found here: http://yearinreview.twitter.com/trends/

For further information about how the trends were defined and calculated visit: http://blog.twitter.com/2010/12/to-trend-or-not-to-trend.html

To tweet about the top trends for 2010 use the term "#Hindsight2010".