Google zeitgeist : sex down, politics up

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Google has just released the results of its annual analysis of search queries, in what they call the Google Zeitgeist 2008.

Global results are as follows:

Fastest rising:

sarah palin
beijing 2008
facebook login
tuenti (The Spanish Facebook)
heath ledger
obama
nasza klasa (The Polish Facebook)
wer kennt wen (The German Facebook)
euro 2008
jonas brothers

Jonas brothers?? And it would appear that every single Polish-Canadian is on nasza klasa because there just aren’t that many Polish-Canadians out there (984,585 claimed full or partial Polish ancestry in the 2001 census)

Google also provides results by region. Here’s what Canadians searched for in 2008:

As our lists suggest, 2008 has seen high interest among Canadians in politics, web tools, the Olympics, and basic information – maps, weather, games. Figures from Obama to Britney captured Canadians’ attention, and several free services grew in popularity, such as Kijiji, a classifieds website, and Surf the Channel, a website dedicated to TV. Canadians turned to news sources from around the world and, in the gadget realm, showed keen interest in “smart phones” and other portable electronics.

Fastest Rising: Obama

Most popular: Facebook

Top political parties: The Green Party

Top celebrities: Britney Spears

Top news sources: CBC

Top personal electronics: Palm Treo (iPhone was ranked number eight)

Google obviously didn’t limit their survey to the Montreal geek community, because the iPhone was an obsession among its members. Not sure I heard them speak once about the Palm Treo.

As for sex, well, last year the Top of Mind ‘how to’ was how to kiss. This year, having learned how to kiss, we must not have enjoyed it very much, because the Top of Mind ‘how to’ is how to draw. Apparently, we have some sexual frustration to exorcise.

Thanks to my good friend Roberto Lima for pointing this study out through … wait for it … Facebook.

ed’s note: Just realizing my mistake. Nasza klasa (The Polish Facebook) is trending on Global and not Canadian results. Still interesting, since Polish is ranked 24th in the world, with only 46 million speakers, compared with 1.051 billion speaking Mandarin Chinese (ranked 1st). Google supports what it calls ‘traditional’ and ‘simplified’ Chinese. The Chinese counterpart to Facebook is called Xiaonei.

Voir aussi / See also

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Written By

msullivan

2 réponses à “Google zeitgeist : sex down, politics up”
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    […] Figures from Obama to Britney captured Canadians’ attention, and several free services grew in popularity, such as Kijiji, a classifieds website, and Surf the Channel, a website dedicated to TV. Canadians turned to news sources from …[Continue Reading] […]

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