Twitter Releases Top Tweets of 2012

Twitter unveiled its Top Tweets of 2012 today, but didn’t limit the list to the most re-Tweeted updates or trending topics this year. The 2012 Year on Twitter also features Tweet highlights and some significant new voices in the Twitterverse. Tweeters can even access a summary of their own Twitter moments from the year, as Twitter has partnered with Vizify to create a customized user graphic displaying each Tweeter’s own Year on Twitter.

In the Golden Tweets category, the top two Tweets that generated the most Retweets in all of 2012 today were “Four more years,” from President Barack Obama, Tweeted upon his reelection Nov. 6

and “RIP Avalanna. I love you,” Tweeted by pop star Justin Bieber Sept. 26 after a 6-year-old fan died of a rare form of brain cancer.

Obama’s Tweet was retweeted more than 810,000 times, while Bieber’s post was Retweeted more than 220,000 times. The page also lists Tweets of several runners up in the Golden Tweets category.

The second category awarded in the 2012 Year on Twitter, Pulse of the Planet, honors the largest conversation topics revolving around a single event. Twitterers posted the most Tweets in 2012 about the Summer Olympic games in London, which generated more than 150 million Tweets. The presidential election was a large topic of discussion on Twitter, generating more than 10 million Tweets during the first debate and 31 million on election day. In fact, at one point Nov. 6, election conversation surged to 327, 452 Tweets per minute.

Some of the biggest trending topics on Twitter in 2012, often signified by the #hashtag, included conversation starters such as #nowplaying, #blessed and #salute; political matters such as #teaparty, #romney and #obama2012; sports discussions like #nfl, #nascar and #sfgiants; and entertainment topics such as American idol, #hip hop, Coachella and and Dark Knight Rises.

Finally, Twitter welcomed some new, yet well-known voices this year. Some of the more sought-out Tweeters who recently joined the Twitterverse include Betty White, Steve Carell, Matt Lauer, Chelsea Clinton, Ringo Starr, Neil Young, Brett Favre and His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI.

[Image via Twitter]