OMG, it’s #stuffYYZlikes!
Twitter, rather than discover a way to let people share their feelings with more than 140 characters at a time, has decided instead to finesse its “trending topics” service. This is where users can learn the popular subjects of discussion in particular locales. Until recently, the municipality-specific trending topics have been limited to U.S. cities, but the list went global yesterday to include London, São Paulo and, yes, Toronto.
The National Post reports:
In addition to Toronto, Twitter users in Detroit, Miami, Minneapolis, Rio De Janeiro and Sydney will also be able to see what’s trending in their city.
Twitter said it was also launching support for Trending Topics in 13 additional countries – Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Netherlands, Singapore, Spain and Venezuela — bringing the total number of country-specific Trending Topics lists to 18.
Just in case it wasn’t clear, Toronto, a city of 2.5 million, is now as important in Twitter terms (Twit-terms?) as India, a country of 1.5 billion. China doesn’t make the list at all. Brazil gets two cities on the list to our one, but we were already jealous of them because it’s November and we’re rummaging around our closets for thermal underwear.
Meanwhile, an exhaustive survey of all 21 cities on Twitter’s new list shows that not a single one of them is either Vancouver or Montreal—or, for that matter, Calgary. We were all ready to let out a hearty “suck it,” especially to Calgary, which we’re convinced is getting too much attention with its new mayor, but then we noticed that Toronto is being added at the same time as Detroit.
• More Cities, More Trends, More Understanding [Twitter Blog]
• FP Tech Desk: Twitter adds Toronto to list of Trending Topics cities [National Post]
• Toronto gets its very own Twitter trending topics [Toronto Star]
• Twitter tracks Toronto trending topics [CBC News]
• Twitter Adds New Trending Topic Locations, Google Translate [PC Magazine]
All right! Are we cool yet?
Is it me or is Toronto Life always seeking approval from others (read non-Canadian media) on how great the city is and putting down other Canadian cities whenever it can? There are some good articles in Toronto Life, but this kind of cattiness brings the whole magazine down to a juvenile level. Let’s talk up Toronto as the great Canadian city it is and not talk down others. It just makes your insecurities that much more obvious.
November 17, 2010 at 11:39 am | by Sid