The trending topics are customized based on your location and more

Jun 12, 2012 20:01 GMT  ·  By
Twitter has started customizing trending topics based on your location and the people you follow
   Twitter has started customizing trending topics based on your location and the people you follow

Twitter trends have long been a way of quickly getting the pulse of the world, at least the part of the world that's on Twitter. Huge topics in places you've never heard of can sweep over the site and dwarf any other conversation.

In time, Twitter has started narrowing down the trending topics, showing different ones in different cities or countries. Now the site is taking it even further with an algorithm-driven trending topics section.

The Trending Topics will be unique to you since they'll not only be shaped by your location but also by the people you follow, ensuring that, at least theoretically, no one sees the same thing.

"Trends help you discover the emerging topics people are talking about on Twitter. You can see these topics as a worldwide list, or select one of more than 150 locations," Twitter explained.

"In order to show emerging topics that matter more to you, today we’re improving our algorithms to tailor Trends based on your location and who you follow on Twitter," it announced.

The new customized Trending Topics will follow you wherever you use Twitter, on the main site or the mobile apps. Provided there are enough Twitter users around you and that stuff actually happens there, the new trends should be more relevant to you.

But if you want to check out the global trends all you have to do is switch your location to the generic "twitter.com" and you'll get an unaltered version of the trending topics. Of course, you can also check out what's hot in the 150 or so predefined locations Twitter provides.

The feature has started rolling out to everyone, but, knowing Twitter, it's going to take a while before it's enabled for each and every user.