Applying one simple regex to the text body of the previous one million tweets creates the most amazing result.
re.findall(r'((?:[A-Z][a-z]+\s?)+)(?<!\s)', full_text) turns into a list of what is currently trending on Twitter. Simple, powerful and elegant.
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Sometimes just ranking hashtags doesn't tell the entire story, but I'm amazed that a small little regex can cut through the noise so nicely.