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Twitter Unveils Top Trending Topics Of 2013

#Zeitgeist
Huffington Post UK/PA
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#Zeitgeist: Twitter has unveiled the most popular trending topics of the year and while the modern world continues to change in amazing new ways, you're all a pretty traditional bunch - Royal babies, Wimbledon and Football were the most talked-about topics.

The birth of the Prince of Cambridge in July, which was announced both on an easel at Buckingham Palace and on Twitter, sparked a frenzy of excitement on the social networking site which spread rapidly across the world.

A spike in conversation came in the minutes following the initial announcement, with more than 25,300 tweets per minute.

At the time, Twitter said the highest volumes of conversation came from the UK, the United States, Canada, France and Italy.

A popular debate surrounding baby George left Twitter users guessing what name the future king would be given.

READ MORE:Twitter breaks down what was popular in 2013

The day after his birth, more than 18,000 people a minute tweeted about the royal prince as he made his first public appearance with his parents on the steps of the Lindo Wing at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington.

The first sighting of the infant with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge was also "live-tweeted'' by the Royal Family's official ClarenceHouse Twitter account, which provides updates about the couple, The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall, and Prince Harry.

Leading figures including Prime Minister David Cameron and the Archbishop of Canterbury the Most Rev Justin Welby took to the site to share their joy on hearing the news of the latest addition to the royal family.

But the world's most popular message, with 408,000 Retweets, had a different flavour:

And although it got people talking, the announcement of the royal baby's birth failed to generate the same flurry of activity on social media as Andy Murray's historic Wimbledon victory earlier in the month which amassed 120,000 tweets per minute, or the election of Pope Francis in March which sparked a massive 132,000 tweets per minute.

Contributing to the thousands of celebratory tweets following Murray's tennis triumph were figures as diverse as Mr Cameron, Victoria Beckham and millionaire entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson.

Elsewhere in the sporting world, football dominated the biggest spikes in UK Twitter traffic, with seven of the top 10 topics in terms of tweets per second being about the beautiful game.

The moment that Manchester United were knocked out of the Champions League after being beaten by Real Madrid took the number one spot, while England's draw with Brazil in a friendly to mark the official reopening of the Maracana stadium ahead of the Brazil 2014 World Cup and when Real Madrid beat Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League semi-final second leg completing the top five.

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Above: The top trending lists for 2013

Also achieving some of the most tweets per second was Mumford and Sons' closing set at Glastonbury in June, with millions marking the moment the band were joined on stage by The Vaccines and Vampire Weekend to sing Beatles classic With A Little Help From My Friends.

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While the election of a new pontiff may be a centuries-old process it captured the imagination of the modern age - prompting seven million mentions on Twitter.

Thousands of people took to the streets of Rome for the historic event, while millions more trained their eyes on the Sistine Chapel from afar and flooded the internet with updates.

Cardinal of Buenos Aires Jorge Mario Bergoglio's election dominated online discussion to such a degree that it became the subject of eight of the top 10 trending topics at one point, according to Twitter.

Twerking - the risque dance move made famous by US star Miley Cyrus at the MTV Video Music Awards in August - became a sensation both offline and on Twitter.

One of the most talked about moments of the night - and in the showbiz year - both Cyrus, her twerking and her foam finger prop took the site by storm as people expressed mainly shock and disapproval.

With almost 25 million unique followers between them, it comes as no surprise the 1D movie premiere took over the Twitter conversation.

As Harry, Zayn, Louis, Niall and Liam took to the red carpet in London's Leicester Square for One Direction: This Is Us in August, fans around the world tweeted about the band and the film.

There were more than 3.6 million related tweets on the day, and in 24 hours there were more than 1.9 million tweets using the hashtag #1DMoviePremiere.

Three of the five most retweeted messages of the year also came from members of the boyband.

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