In its leaked plans earlier this year, Twitter said its aim was to become “the pulse of the planet.”

The top Twitter trends for 2009 show that it’s succeeded in becoming, if nothing else, the pulse of English speakers on the planet, in line with the US accounting for 60%+ users and the UK coming in a distant second with 8%.

Michael Jackson and Susan Boyle led in the people category, while Harry Potter and the Twilight spin-off New Moon headed up ‘films.’    The Iran Elections were generally considered to be a turning point in the development of Twitter (as it outflanked mainstream news services in providing info on what was going on), so it’s no surprise that Iran ranked top followed by Swine Flu.

But did the collective mixture of complaints and whoops of delight from UK Tweeple at snow in February and December really succeed in making ‘UK Snow’ the number eight trending news topic?   Guess the old stereotype about Brits and talking about the weather really is true, as proven by Twitter.

(Via Kate Kendall)