Facebook Unveils Most-Mentioned Topics ~ Welcome to Facebook!

Last week, Twitter revealed its list of the most-discussed topics of 2009, based on Twitter’s trending topics. Now Facebook has come out with their own list, based on data from the millions of daily status updates of its users.

While the world’s largest social network took a different approach than its upstart competitor (explanation below), it did match some of TwitterTwitter’s “most discussed” topics of 2009. However, it seems as if FacebookFacebook’s data analysis has revealed that people care a great deal about family (#5), Facebook apps (#1), Lady Gaga (#12), and, yes, even Twitter (#10).

First, How Facebook Performed the Analysis

Dubbed Facebook Memology, the company analyzed one- to four-word phrases within the Facebook status updates of 2009. They went even further, though, taking “bursts of activity” and other factors into account.

Facebook’s explanation:

“To generate the list, we started by looking at how many times each phrase with length from one-to-four words occurred in U.S. Facebook status updates, then we computed the rate at which each phrase occurred in 2009 compared to 2008. Using some data-mining methods detailed here, we analyzed important bursts in activity around words and series of words to find the key trends for the year. All personally identifiable information was removed from the status updates to conduct this analysis, and no one at Facebook read the individual status updates.”

The result is rather different than Twitter’s list of top topics: It groups together key topics and doesn’t discount frequently used words such as “I” (the #15 Facebook memology trend of 2009).

If you want more details on the technical side of the analysis, the Facebook Data team has posted a thorough explanation of its methodology.

The Top Facebook Topics of 2009

Facebook grouped specific keywords and phrases together to build their list of the most discussed topics on Facebook. Here’s the full list:

Facebook provides a very detailed analysis of their top 15 Facebook status trends, but most are self-explanatory.

The number one trend was Facebook apps, specifically the discussion of FarmVille in status updates. The game, which has taken Facebook by storm, has made not only FarmVille a popular phrase on the social network, but “Farm Town” and “Farm” as well.

One of the more interesting trends is family, which came in at number five. Specifically, discussion about family, moms, dads, daughters, etc. jumped during 2009. With Facebook users getting older, this isn’t a big surprise. However, the fact that the mention of “kids” jumped by a factor of five this year is rather dramatic. It’s tough to know what this means, though.

Facebook also acknowledged Twitter’s growth, as it is number 10 on this list. Specifically, Twitter and “RT” became popular trends on Facebook. Still, the company couldn’t help but make a minor dig at its rival by declaring that “mentions of the word Twitter decreased over the past few months.”

What do you think of these top topics? Does any of the data surprise you? Let us know in the comments.