2012 is a new year which will no doubt bring new fads, new trends, new global stars and new surprises. But what was it that captured the attention of the online world in 2011? You may have missed it, but not long ago Google released its 11^th annual compilation of top search keywords that users have been using throughout the year. They call it ‘Google Zeitgeist’, which is a loanword from German Zeit – "time" and Geist – "spirit". In full, then – the spirit of our times!

Globally, the fastest rising searches of 2011 list was topped by Rebecca Black, the American teenager who shot to fame earlier in the year when her pop video for the song ‘Friday’ was dubbed ‘the worst song ever’ and received around 167 million views on Youtube. The top three places were made up by new social networking site ‘Google Plus’ and the recently deceased star of television series ‘Jackass’, Ryan Dunn. Other popular searches making the top-ten list featured widespread subjects varying from the iPhone 5 to Japan’s Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster following an Earthquake in March.

Google also broke down searches by country and region, with some of the more amusing results being thrown up in NCC Education’s Head Office home of Britain. Here, we have apparently been searching for the answers to some of the big questions such as ‘What is scampi?’, ‘What are truffles?’ and ‘What are cookies?’ (Presumably it’s the coding kind which are causing us difficulties?!)

Also taking the opportunity for some online recollecting of 2011 was Twitter, who released a list of the most popular hashtags (used to group together tweets relating to the same subject) of the year. The results demonstrated how diverse Twitter can be in terms of the range of topics discussed. #egypt came top of the list, with many users discussing the political unrest in the country throughout 2011. Politics, though, gives way to celebrity gossip and humour for number two on the list, with #tigerblood being used in reference to US actor Charlie Sheen’s comment to online celebrity gossip site RadarOnline: "My fangs are dripping tiger blood."

Top Twitter hashtags:

1.     #egypt

2.     #tigerblood

3.     #threewordstoliveby

4.     #idontunderstandwhy

5.     #japan

6.     #improudtosay

7.     #superbowl

8.     #jan25

On its official blog, the website claimed that "more than anything, these trends demonstrate how Twitter connects people with common interests. Instead of watching the news, the Super Bowl and Pretty Little Liars at home alone, we watched them together on Twitter".

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Categories: On the Web (Articles)

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