it-sneak

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Google shows us its zeitgeist

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If your capacity for reading year round-up/prediction stories is still undiminished - even though Sneak's tolerance for writing them is reaching breaking point - then cast your eyes over Google's latest attempt to show how zeitgeisty and happening it is. The search giant's snazzily-titled Top Searched Terms of 2008 in the United Kingdom release breaks down by various topic areas what the most popular terms were this year, as well as some rising stars.

In the battle of the massive egos that is the most searched politicians category, Prime Minister Gordon Brown beat David Cameron into second place, while Obama came in third. However, on a global scale, Sarah Palin came worryingly top of the fastest rising queries, relegating Obama to sixth.

Facebook, BBC and YouTube were the top three search terms in this country, which is an interesting insight into the public's web browsing behaviour. Facebook's URL is a fairly simple thing to type into your browser toolbar, but obviously this activity is too taxing for many. Perhaps unsurprisingly "jobs" crept in as the tenth most popular search term - and it wouldn't be a stretch to see this rise significantly in the rankings over the course of next year.

Oh, and for any of you wondering, rather bizarrely Google decided to list the fastest rising recipe search terms too. It's "cupcake", since you ask.

11 Dec 2008

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