Google has just released its annual Zeitgeist report for 2008. The report brings together all the search data that Google collects throughout the year and highlights some of the most interesting things. And this year, for the first time, it includes specific data for 30 different counties, according to the Google Blog post.
So what's in the report? Well globally, the fastest rising terms the year were as follows:
- sarah palin
- beijing 2008
- facebook login
- tuenti
- heath ledger
- obama
- nasza klasa
- wer kennt wen
- euro 2008
- jonas brothers
Yes, former Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin captured our minds, if not our hearts, this year. She managed to beat out the Chinese Olympics, and interestingly enough, the rather specific, "facebook login." And while Democrat Barack Obama may have won the United States' Presidency, he too lost to Palin in search race, coming in at number 6.
However, for the U.S. Zeitgeist data, Obama was the number one fastest rising result last year. Along with Palin, he beat Facebook and the iPhone on that list. Though, once again, it was Palin who took him down in Google News and Google Image searches.
This year's Zeitgeist also lists the top ten most searched for social networks in the world:
- myspace
- hi5
- orkut
- nasza klasa
- netlog
- mixi
- meetup
- odnoklassniki
The economy was also on a lot of people's minds in 2008. The top searches in that area included:
- financial crisis
- depression
- bailout
- mortgage crisis
- wall street
- oil
- stock market
- subprime
- credit crisis
- housing crisis
In the new "Around the World" section, Zeitgeist shows the differences between nations, but also many similarities. Chief among them seems to be the desire to find information about Facebook, YouTube and the iPhone -- all of which also made the U.S.'s list.
And yes, I've used the joke in the headline before -- a few times. It never gets old.
You can find the previous years' Zeitgeists here.