Facebook Memology: Top Status Trends of 2009

(This is a very good example of text mining. Editor)

Facebook Memology: Top Status Trends of 2009

by Lars Backstrom, December 21, 2009

In the tradition of year-end lists, we're introducing Facebook Memology. "Memology" refers to the study of how "memes," or new ideas and trends, are spreading on Facebook. For this year's list, the Facebook Data Team mapped the top trending words and phrases in U.S. status updates for 2009.

While significant news events and celebrities made the list, more personal topics like family, religion and even emerging digital slang were as common - no doubt reflecting the way people share their daily lives with friends on Facebook.

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.

1 - Facebook Applications: Farmville, Farm Town, Social Living

2 - FML (F#%k My Life) - a term of frustration

3 - Swine Flu. Specific words: Flu, Swine Flu, H1N1

4 - Celebrity Deaths. Specific words: Michael Jackson, Patrick Swayze, Billy Mays

5 - Family. Specific words: Family, Mom, Dad, Son, Daughter, Kids

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