The search engine’s end-of-year ‘zeitgeist’ round-up has found that iPhone was the fastest rising search term globally this year.
Google studied the aggregation of billions of search queries people conducted on Google.com, predominantly in the US, to compile its end-of-year ‘zeitgeist’ list.
American Idol, YouTube, Britney Spears and the 2007 Cricket World Cup were the four most searched terms on Google News in the US during the past year, it revealed.
Transformers, 300, The Simpsons Movie and Epic Movie were the most commonly searched for films on Google.com in the US. Heroes, Lost, House and 24 were the TV shows that attracted the most interest on the web, and the mosquito ringtone, the 24 ringtone and The Office ringtone were the most popular ringtone searches.
If Google popularity is any reflection on political popularity, Hilary Clinton will be pleased that she has pulled away from her rival Barack Obama over the second part of the year. However, the popularity of all candidates fluctuated during the year and in the final round-up Ron Paul and Fred Thompson were the two most-searched for presidential hopefuls. Paul has outperformed both Obama and Clinton since about May, being searched by three times as many net users as Clinton at one point in October.
The fastest rising search term globally was iPhone, with badoo and Facebook taking second and third spot. The fastest rising search terms in the US was iPhone, Webkinz, tmz and Transformers.
The most popular questions asked of the search engine during 2007 were age-old queries such as ‘how to kiss’, ‘who is god’ and ‘what is love’. The other most popular queries were ‘how to draw’, ‘how to knit’, ‘who is who’, ‘who is lookup’, ‘what is autism’ and ‘what is rss’.
By Niall Byrne
