Los Angeles — Popular micro-blogging site Twitter, on Monday tagged on another 70 new countries and cities around the world to Local Trends, including Vancouver, Montreal, Japan, South Africa, Santiago, Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur.
Twitter first introduced trending topics in 2008 and has gradually expanded the feature since then. Now, users in more than 100 international locations can discover what topics are trending in their region.
The Trends tool empowers users to see what is being discussed in their locality at any given moment, from celebrity gossip to natural disasters or political messages. Last January, the feature was confined to a handful of places, but it was only available in major U.S. cities like New York City and Washington D.C. In November, Twitter expanded this to 6 more cities and 13 additional countries.
“Early last year, we added Local Trends to make it easier for you to find more locally relevant topics in specific countries and metropolitan locations,” Twitter’s Carolyn Penner wrote. “Today, we are adding Trends for more than 70 new cities and countries — bringing the total number of locations to more than 100.”
To see what is being discussed in a given locality, click the “change” link next to the city you have designated in the “Trends” subheader section on the right-hand side of your browser. New countries include Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Malaysia, South Africa, and Japan, among others. Cities such as Monterrey, Mexico; Caracas, Venezuela; Jakarta, Indonesia; and Johannesburg, South Africa were also added to the list. But you do not have to get that specific. You can opt to view trending topics worldwide, by county, or by city. Also in Canada, Toronto has been available under Trends since November, 2010.
Moreover, the addition of Vancouver and Montreal comes just in time for the NHL playoffs. The two cities house the only Canadian hockey teams to make the playoffs and no doubt the Twitterverse will soon be abuzz with posts about both the Vancouver Canucks and the Montreal Canadiens.
Furthermore, Twitter’s announcement also suggests that Canadians and local Twitter users will now be able to view what topics are trending in places like Jakarta, Japan and Kuala Lampur.
Twitter, which was introduced in 2006, now boasts more than 200 million registered users worldwide. In addition, most of the site’s growth was achieved over the past two years. In fact, a study from social media analytics company Sysomos says 95 percent of handles have been created since January 2009.