What do earthquakes, an amateur dance group, health drugs, and a “pop singer” have in common? They all helped the “Philippine Island” (sic) become a trending topic on Twitter.

In the afternoon of Saturday, July 24, 2010, in the Philippines, the words “Philippine Island” became a hot trending topic on Twitter.

The trend coincided with the local airing of ABS-CBN’s “Showtime,” a dance competition show which featured among its monthly finalists a popular group called “Philippine Islands Assassin”.However, the trending phenomenon was also apparently buoyed by other confluences —all of which would seem to have absolutely nothing to do with each other anywhere else outside of Twitter.

Earlier in the day, earthquakes with varying magnitudes struck Western Mindanao between 6am and 9am. Although no casualties were reported, the news caused a stir in the Philippine online community. This, in turn, caused Philippines-related tweets —including ones that had the ambiguous-sounding “Philippine Island” in them— to gain notice in the Twitterverse.

Meanwhile, around noon, Canada-based pharmaceutical supplier Canadian Pharmacy announced that people who retweeted the URL of its website could get a chance to win an iPhone 4. “Retweet this link! More retweets win an iPhone 4,” the company said.

Somewhere along the line, a few enterprising Tweeps thought to take advantage of current trends to help get more mileage for their tweets: “Breaking news! Philippine Island hc3 http://illshealthsite.com RT and I’ll win iPhone4!” and “Don’t be the last.. Philippine Island dp9 http://illshealthsite.com RT, please. iPhone4.” are just a couple of examples.

Just as the trend peaked, sometime around 2pm a fan of pop singer Katy Perry with the Twitter handle @katvperry tweeted, “I love the Philippine Island! I was there last year and twas awesome.”

The tweet prompted many people, who mistook her for the real Katy Perry, to re-broadcast the tweet.

As a result, @katvperry’s shoutout became a Top Tweet after it was retweeted more than a hundred times.

The misunderstanding caused a retroactive effect, causing the popularity of “Philippine Island” to gain even further.

Also contributing to the popularity of the trend was US-based Filipino-Mexican R&B singer Jasmine Villegas, who enthusiastically tweeted, “Philippine Island Mahal Kita!! Pinoy Pride Baby!”

As of 6pm, “Philippine Island” is still the second biggest trend on Twitter worldwide.

Source: GMA News