Google's 2008 Zeitgeist lists of most popular searches
With 2008 coming to an end, the data miners at Google, which performs more than 60 percent of searches worldwide, have compiled their Zeitgeist lists of the most popular search terms.
These latest lists include these categories: U.S., top of mind, politics, trendsetters, showbiz, sports, and around the world.
In the category of fastest-rising global searches (comparing 2007 with 2008 searches), Sarah Palin comes in at No. 1 and President elect Barack Obama at No. 6, trailing "beijing 2008," "facebook login," Tuenti" (the equivalent of Facebook in Spain), and "Heath Ledger."
In other words, Sarah Palin's more than 15 minutes of fame catapulted her into the search stratosphere.
Fastest rising global searches
1. sarah palin
2. beijing 2008
3. facebook login
4. tuenti
5. heath ledger
6. obama
7. nasza klasa
8. wer kennt wen
9. euro 2008
10. jonas brothers
Google also looked at trends, such as green issues, social networks, and most popular cocktails. The venerable martini tops the cocktail list, while Facebook is the top social-network search term.
(Credit:
Google)
From a global perspective, Google's YouTube was the most pervasive search term of 2008, making almost every country list and topping many of them. The growth of YouTube, which is the sources of about 40 percent of video streams in the U.S., indicates the massive shift toward Web video from other forms of media and entertainment.
Dan Farber is editor in chief of CBS Interactive News, which includes CBSNews.com and CNET News. He has more than 25 years of experience as an editor and journalist covering technology. E-mail Dan. 
Yahoo: http://buzz.yahoo.com/yearinreview2008/
Ask: http://about.ask.com/en/docs/2008/topqueries.shtml
It's poor reporting to liken "Fastest Rising" to "Most Popular". If you look at the Zeitgeist page itself, it gives clear definitions:
---
"Fastest rising" means we looked at the most popular searches conducted for 11 months of 2008 (we compile this list by early December) and then ranked them based on how much their popularity increased compared to 2007. "Most popular" searches are ranked in order of the queries with the largest volume of searches for 2008.
---
We even get BOTH Most Popular and Fastest Rising for countries around the world:
http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist2008/world.html
But not Worldwide and not United States. This is not to say those numbers aren't coming. But for Cnet to says "Google has released their most popular searches" is inaccurate or, at least, misleading.
rburriel
As an example, just type into a google search "Windows xp retail price" and you will see what I mean.
- by ThomasWhitney January 28, 2009 5:26 PM PST
- I was surprised that digital security wasn't on there. Not a hot cultural pop favorite topic but certainly something that everyone is talking about under their breath. I found one site to be very educational about this topic at Gemalto (http://www.justaskgemalto.com) maybe with one source no one has to google?
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(7 Comments)