Somewhat recently Twitter has changed how Trending Topics work by allowing users to change the location of where the topics are aggregated from. I support the idea of improving Trending Topics, I don’t think this fixes them.
Because more “normal” people are now on Twitter, we’re beginning to see Trending Topics that aren’t much interest to Twitter’s earliest adopters. I don’t mind that more people are using Twitter, but I do mind that Trending Topics have become so irrelevant.
Trending Topics come from all around the world (and around you), but the result is that you discover just how many people around you are talking about things you aren’t interested in.
Trending Topics, after I have started following a good number of people (roughly 150), are essentially useless to me because I’m not trying to figure out what’s going on in my area. What I really want are more tweets relating to the content that the people I follow currently tweet.
I follow a bunch of designers and developers. That’s the content I’m interested in. I like to read things about iPhone, iPad, icons, art, design, Apple, etc. I am not interested in any of the current U.S. Trending Topics.
I could set up searches for the topics I am interested in, but better yet would be if as the people I follow start talking about a single thing (like a new Apple product), I’d see that show up in Trending Topics so I can gather what other people are saying about it. I might find other people that interest me, people that I’d want to follow.