what is trending topics on twitter?

[Shaneen]

cuz my friend made the trending topics list on twitter and was so excited when he told me and i had no idea what he was talking about

[Paul Linh Nguyen]

If you have Twitter...it makes it easier for you to understand. But I will still proceed.

For users who are logged into Twitter (at least from the website), there is a portion on the right side of their page that shows "Trending Topics"

Items under the trending topics, as the name implies, are what Twitter thinks appear to be popular trends going on.

That is...as Twitter receives all the various Tweets from people, it will notice certain words being used over and over.

Take for example when Michael Jackson died recently...
A lot of people were tweeting "Michael Jackson" so and so....

Twitter picks up on the word "Michael Jackson" and it becomes a "Trending Topic".

*chuckle*
As I am posting examples in the source below...even "goodnight" shows up. Not surprisingly it ias already past 2am here in California.

Hope that makes sense?