Twitter trends for Obama speech: U.S. tweets 'itampon,' rest of the world focuses on D.C.

Jan. 28, 2010

It’s hard to say what Wednesday’s top-trending Twitter tweet would have been if Apple hadn’t released the iPad in San Francisco, but since it did, we can say one thing with certainty: Twitterers in other countries were more interested in President Obama’s State of the Union address than American-based Twitter users, who were more interested in tweeting about Apple’s latest.

At first glance, one might think this would make Steve Jobs and everyone at Apple extremely happy – the new product was getting more attention than the President of the United States on a night designed to give the president the attention of the entire free world!

But there’s a catch. The top-trending Twitter term in America wasn’t “iPad,” it was “itampon.” Uh, Apple’s core thinkers had to see that one coming. Didn’t they?

At any rate, since there’s a Web page at sourcewatch.org listing members of Congress who are known to use twitter, The Punditty Project thought it would be in the public service to shine a virtual spotlight on the findings. NOTE: the # symbol is sometimes inserted before a particular keyword in a tweet.

To see screenshots of the actual statistics reported here, click here, then click on the image to make it larger. In the meantime, please retweet this report to friends, family and elected representatives where applicable. To follow The Punditty Project on Twitter, click here.

TOP TWITTER TRENDS FOLLOWING PRESIDENT OBAMA’S STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS, 1-27-10

(all times Eastern Standard Time)

WORDLWIDE, 7:10 p.m. (Around the time Obama finished speaking)

SOTU (short for State of the Union)

Union Address

#nowplaying

#stateoftheunion

President Obama

Republicans

Nancy Pelosi

Potus

United States

Congress

UNITED STATES, 7:11 p.m.

#itampon

#ipad

#nowthatsghetto

Apple iPad

iBooks

MaxiPAd

Union address

MadTV

iTablet

Howard Zinn

One last comment from TPP: RIP, Howard Zinn.