Facebook’s top 10 status trends include Bieber, World Cup and ‘HMU’
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In 2010, Justin Bieber was more popular than Gaga or Britney, and Apple products beat out Android -– at least in Facebook status trends.
The social networking site released its second Memology report, in which Facebook’s “data scientists” track the terms that had more of a presence in status updates than they did the year prior.
This year, Facebook users just wanted to hang out. “HMU,” the abbreviation for “hit me up,” clinched the top spot on the list. The term was rarely used in 2009, but then boomed 75% each month in 2010, eventually reaching 80,000 mentions a day by the end of summer.
But in September, “HMU” became primarily a weekend phenomenon. Facebook’s theory is that most “HMU” requesters are students who returned to school and were too busy to meet up during the week.
Next up was “World Cup” in second place. The start of the games landed 1.5 million mentions while the finals between Spain and the Netherlands garnered 1.3 million. Occasionally during the games, up to half of all status updates were focused on soccer.
Movies were a big deal. “Toy Story 3” dominated discussion, followed by “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse,” “Inception,” “Alice in Wonderland” and “Iron Man 2.” The iPad and iPhone 4 were also popular subjects.
The Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti had Facebook users fixated, as did the plight of the 33 Chilean miners –- or “mineros” in Spanish -- trapped underground for 69 days.
Teen pop wunderkind Bieber made the list (along with similar lists from Twitter, Google and Yahoo). Facebook games such as FrontierVille and the word “airplanes” made the cut as well. The latter was usually a reference to the hit B.O.B. song “Airplanes.”
And as 2010 nears its end, more status updates are mentioning “2011.”
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-- Tiffany Hsu
Top photo: A scene from ‘The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.’ Credit: Kimberley French /Associated Press Photo/Summit Entertainment
