Everyone realizes that Twitter has recently become a source for breaking news. People tweet something interesting for others who – instantly- pick up, retweet and move it forward – demonstrating a new form of a modern word of mouth -. Eventually, and if a story is picked up by many people, it goes viral and becomes a trending topic that appears at the right side column of every Twitter homepage along with many other websites which follow Twitter trends. It also becomes an interesting topic for bloggers and news publications to cover. One of the best web portals that covers Twitter Trends – which I personally like the most – is “What the Trend?“. It shows trending Twitter topics along with when they have became trending, how long have they been trending, and why they are trending. The “Why” part is left for people to fill in a wiki-style.

If you take a look at the trending Twitter topics over time, you will realize that most of them are in relation to big blockbusters, big brands names as well as breaking news. It is not common, and not easy either, to come up with an idea and push it up to become a trending topic if you are not already big, but then again, the beauty of social media, in general, and Twitter, in particular, is that they leave a good space for small players to innovate and hit big.

Which Drink Are You? - A simple quiz that made Twitter's trending topics