Yesterday, Twitter released a number of top ten lists for trends in 2010. They showed off the top trends of the year in general, as well as the top in tech, news, movies, people, TV, and hashtags. Today, the company has released a list of what it has deemed as the top ten most powerful tweets of the year.
The tweets come from reporter Ann Curry, the White House, an account parodying BP, and seven others. The tweets themselves are embedded below.
"We put a group together, and we curated thousands of tweets, and we tried to find a nice cross-section between tweets that really showed the power of an information network and tweets that showcased sort of the power of humanity," Twitter co-founder Biz Stone told the Today Show this morning.
"Every day, we are inspired by people using Twitter in unexpected ways to make the world a better place," says @jodiolson of Twitter's Corporate Communications. "Powerful Tweets have impact, relevance and resonance. In just 140 characters, you can change the game, make a difference in someone's life, offer perspective, or bring aid to people in need."
Ann Curry's tweet, which made the top of the list came after the monstrous earthquake ripped through Haiti early this year, and led to a plane of physicians getting clearance to land. As described on Twitter's list, she used Twitter to convince the Air Force to allow the flight to land.
"One tweet can get retweeted so many times that...Ann was sort of virtually able to wave in that Doctors Without Borders plane, and get them landed within an hour," said Stone.
The fake BP account is particularly noteworthy, given that it actually is a fake account. Talking about the infamous oil spill, Stone said, "Obviously it was a big deal. Everyone was really angry and really worried, and it's just very interesting that a parody account became the voice of this whole thing."
Descriptions of all the tweets can be found here, to put them into greater context. Watch the entire conversation on the Today Show here.
