Posted by josh in The race to the top and and the final list of most searched terms of 2009 didn’t came as a shock, but was more of a thriller. Michael Jackson’s untimely death in June has topped year-end search lists from both Google and Yahoo.
The search companies released their annual lists on Tuesday as an effort to provide a cultural snapshot of what held the public’s interest over the past year. Jackson topped both Google’s fastest-rising and Yahoo’s overall searches.
“As millions of fans said goodbye to the King of Pop, Michael Jackson led the list of our top 10 fastest rising queries across the globe. And a new star was born, too – quirky pop singer Lady Gaga became a search sensation the world over,” wrote Google in their December 1, Zeitgeist blog post.
Michael Jackson tops Google’s list of fastest rising global searches in 2009. The pop star is followed by social networking site, Facebook and its invite-only Spanish social networking rival, Tuenti. This top 10 list includes:
1) Michael Jackson
2) Facebook
3) Tuenti
4) Twitter
5) Sanalika
6) New Moon
7) Lady Gaga
Windows 7
9) Dantri.com.vn
10) Torpedo Gratis
While Facebook and Twitter well known social-networking sites, two more social-networking sites managed to get themselves in the list; Spain’s Tuenti and Turkey’s Sanalika. The two other websites that made to the list are the Vietnamese portal dantri.com.vn and Portuguese SMS website Torpedo Gratis.
Yahoo’s list was also headed by Michael Jackson in the top place with the list as follows:
1) Michael Jackson
2) Twilight
3) WWE
4) Megan Fox
5) Britney Spears
6) Japanese anime character Naruto
7) American Idol
8)Kim Kardashian
9)NASCAR
10) and online role-playing game Runescape.
Yahoo said the dominance of pop culture in the searches shows that the internet is being used largely for entertainment purposes.
