Want to know what are the things that people have been really interested in this year? If you want to get a really good idea there’s no point in just checking out the news headlines, you need to go to the water cooler of the internet to see what we’ve been really whittering (or should that be twittering) on about.

News Events

From a news point of view, the Iran election and the alleged irregularities not only had people talking, but also had avatars turning green all over Twitter. Alongside this we all got scared of talking to each other in real life in case we got Swine Flu and turned into pigs, got all a bit excited about Obama becoming president and then a few flakes of snow fell and every mode of transport failed to work leaving the whole of the United Kingdom wishing they had more than tinned custard in their cupboards.

1. #iranelection
2. Swine Flu
3. Gaza
4. Iran
5. Tehran
6. #swineflu
7. AIG
8. #uksnow
9. Earth Hour
10. #inaug09

People

The death of Michael Jackson had Twitter and the world in shock this year, and then just when everyone had recovered Adam Lambert decided to flick the shock switch again with his performance at the American Music Awards. Susan Boyle went from being a nobody still living in the family home at 47 to a global singing star, whilst Chris Brown went from being a singer to someone who hits his girlfriend. Tiger Woods crashed into a tree which was packed full of secret affairs that came spilling out, whilst Christian Bale had quite the opposite problem not being able to keep quiet when someone walked into his line of sight during a scene on the Terminator Salvation film.

1. Michael Jackson
2. Susan Boyle
3. Adam Lambert
4. Kobe (Bryant)
5. Chris Brown
6. Chuck Norris
7. Joe Wilson
8. Tiger Woods
9. Christian Bale
10. A-Rod (Alex Rodriguez)

Movies

Whilst Harry Potter and New Moon may be aimed at teenagers that didn’t stop Twitter going mad about these two films this year. Alongside this there was also plenty to interest the geeks in the form of  Star Trek and Transformers 2.

1. Harry Potter
2. New Moon
3. District 9
4. Paranormal Activity
5. Star Trek
6. True Blood
7. Transformers 2
8. Watchmen
9. Slumdog Millionaire
10. G.I. Joe

TV Shows

The UK’s X Factor might not have been able to get itself into the top ten in 2009, but American Idol did it easily coming in at the top spot, followed closely by the glorious Glee. Television Awards also got everyone excited with the Teen Choice Awards, Video Music Awards and BET Awards all getting people tweeting away.

1. American Idol
2. Glee
3. Teen Choice Awards
4. SNL (Saturday Night Live)
5. Dollhouse
6. Grey’s Anatomy
7. VMAS (Video Music Awards)
8. #bsg (Battlestar Galatica)
9. BET Awards
10. Lost

Sports (Teams, Events, Leagues)

Showing America’s dominance on Twitter is the fact that more than half of the most talked about sports events on Twitter were US based. However the UK did get some noticeable mentions in the form of Wimbledon, Chelsea and Liverpool.

1. Super Bowl
2. Lakers
3. Wimbledon
4. Cavs (Cleveland Cavaliers)
5. Superbowl
6. Chelsea
7. NFL
8. UFC 100
9. Yankees
10. Liverpool

Technology

It was all about waving on Twitter this year, Google Wave-ing to be exact, with everyone wanting an invite and then not sure how to use it once they had it. New operating systems for both the Apple (Snow Leopard) and PC (Windows 7) were also enough to get everyone excited. Oh and let’s not forget about the big #amazonfail that had everyone getting far too over-excited.

1. Google Wave
2. Snow Leopard
3. Tweetdeck
4. Windows 7
5. CES
6. Palm Pre
7. Google Latitude
8. #E3
9. #amazonfail
10. Macworld

Hash Tags

Before Twitter came along the hash tag had life easy, now the poor thing is in constant use whether it’s being used to highlight a news topic, as it was this year concerning the #iranelection and #swineflu, or just to entertain us all as we try to be the one to make up the wittiest tweet using hashtags such as #rememberwhen, #3drunkwords and #nevertrust.

1. #musicmonday
2. #iranelection
3. #sxsw
4. #swineflu
5. #nevertrust
6. #mm
7. #rememberwhen
8. #3drunkwords
9. #unacceptable
10. #iwish