2012′s biggest Twitter event: The Games

In the world according to Twitter, the Summer Olympics were the biggest story of the year.

The London Games generated 150 million tweets over 16 days, according to a year-end report released by the social networking site, with the most-talked-about events the Spice Girls reunion during the closing ceremony (116,000 tweets per minute) and Usain Bolt’s 200-meter dash victory (80,000 TPM).

Other tweet-tastic events included the MTV Music Video Awards in September, which prompted 52 million tweets, and the election, which received more than 31 million mentions on election day in November.

The New York Giants’ Super Bowl victory got 13.7 million mentions, with game-related tweets spiking during the final five minutes as the New England Patriots took the field for the final time.

The other football, soccer, was also hugely popular, with Euro 2012 driving more than 267,000 tweets per minute during Spain’s 4-0 win over Italy in the final.

Superstorm Sandy, the UEFA Champions League semifinal, the Japanese anime film “Summer Wars,” Whitney Houston’s surprise death and the controversial SOPA and PIPA Congressional bills rounded out the year’s top events.

Top trending topics included #nowplaying, #tcot (top conservatives on Twitter), #NFL, “Family Guy,” “Think Like a Man,” Rick Ross, AT&T, IHOP and Syria.

Tags: 2012 twitter, election, family guy, IHOP, Italy, mtv music awards, nfl, olympics, Rick Ross, SOPA, Spice Girls, summer olympics, Summer Wars, super bowl, superstorm sandy, Syria, top twitter events, twitter, twitter 2012, U.S., usain bolt, whitney houston