Fingers on the Pulse -- And on the Keyboard
Dec. 19, 2006— -- When German philosopher Johann Herder introduced the term "zeitgeist," which literally translates to "spirit of the times," to the world in his 1769 critique, few could have imagined that more than two centuries later it would come to represent everything from Bebo to Borat, Togo to TomKat, Hezbollah to Hurricane Katrina.
Merriam-Webster defines "zeitgeist" as the "intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of our time." This week Google released its own "zeitgeist," an annual tally of the trends of the year, and possibly a generation, based on our searches.
Google's statement on their Web site explains it all: "a year's worth of search speaks to our collective consciousness, and 2006 is no exception."
Instead of simply listing the top 10-searched words of the year, Google broke its study down into six categories: Home, What's Hot, Current Events, Milestones, Entertainment and Sports. So, what is it that Internet users are looking for?
In a year that saw the Internet increase it's grip on our lives, the war in Iraq seesaw between the "war on terror" and "civil war," and the need for sporting events like the Olympics and the soccer World Cup to bring the world together, the top searches, not surprisingly, centered around connection.
More people searched for the Web site Bebo.com than anything else. A social networking site where 22 million users from Internet portals all over the world post pictures and blogs and instant-message one another, Bebo, which didn't even exist in 2005, had an explosive debut year.
It makes sense then that the year's second most popular search was for the largest social networking site in the world -- MySpace.com. One year ago, social networking was just beginning to spread its wings, utilized by tens of millions of people. Today, the site hosts the largest communities on the Web, measured in the hundreds of millions.
Video was the seventh most popular term searched on Google overall in 2006.
That's it. Just the word, "video."
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