Twitter has announced its top tweets for 2011 — that’s top tweets as judged by Twitter, not in terms of a metric like retweets or impressions. Here are the top 3:
1. Welcome back Egypt #Jan25 – @ghonim
2. Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event) – @ReallyVirtual
3. my daughter her name is sarah m. rivera – @putodanny
In a post on ABCNews.com yesterday, co-founder Jack Dorsey offered some insight into how some of the tweets were chosen. For instance, he had this to say about the massive volley of Tweets during and after the Japanese earthquake in March:
“You want to feel like you’re not alone in this massive, massive experience that is potentially very scary. To me it’s about being able to reach out instantly and know that others are with you and others are experiencing the same thing and others are out there supporting and that’s what you saw in Japan. You saw people reach out and say we’re in an earthquake right now and then all around the world you have all these replies coming in to these Japanese people saying we’re watching…it’s OK…are you there?”
Incidentally, here’s a visualization of Tweets, @ replies and retweets during and after the quake:
Since the list is ranked by “impact, resonance and relevance,” it’s sure to provide a lot of fodder for debate, and for tweeting.