Google Year-End Zeitgeist.
December 24, 2001 11:47 AM   Subscribe

Google Year-End Zeitgeist. "From 'Harry Potter' to 'Osama Bin Laden' and 'Florida Supreme Court' to 'Napster,' the Google Year-End Zeitgeist reveals the collective focus of the online mind, highlighting the main events that drew the attention of a global audience"
posted by skwm (16 comments total)
 
Dear MeFi cops,
Yes, yes yes....I am aware that this is a double post of sorts, but I thought that it warrented a new FPP because of the new content.
Thanks for understanding.
posted by skwm at 11:48 AM on December 24, 2001


Odd, the Lycos 50 lists Dragonball as the most searched for term, but it appears nowhere on the Google Zeitgeist. There seems to be quite a bit of non-correlation between the two lists.
posted by bobo123 at 11:54 AM on December 24, 2001


Odd, the Lycos 50 lists Dragonball as the most searched for term.

Different methodologies? Google reports the top gaining terms for a given period. If you asked any search engine what the "top" (i.e. "most") search term was, the answer would be "sex," right? If that's still the case, then Lycos is using a different method to arrive at its results.

That or Lycos has some deal whereby some media giant with a deal with Nintendo put a link to Lycos (e.g. Click here for more information on DRAGONBALL!!!) in their content.
posted by rschram at 12:41 PM on December 24, 2001


#10 is Loft Story. All the links are in French. What the heck is Loft Story?
posted by Tacodog at 1:22 PM on December 24, 2001


I'd thought it might be the different methodologies, but shouldn't Dragonball still be turning up in the "Top Ten Television Shows" category?

What I would like to see is a real list of top search terms that isn't edited for content. Or maybe I don't want to see that.
posted by bobo123 at 1:23 PM on December 24, 2001


Loft Story according to the BBC.
posted by Carol Anne at 1:44 PM on December 24, 2001


Thank you Carol Anne. I gave up my own Loft Story research after the nth porn pop-up.
posted by Tacodog at 1:49 PM on December 24, 2001


Observations:
- The Top 10 Women seem to be considerably more sexually attractive than the Top 10 Men. ...No, I'm not surprised.
- I disagree on the results of "XBox vs. GameCube vs. PlayStation 2." The results would have been much different if the search term was "PS2" rather than the more formal "PlayStation 2."
- Glad to see my favorite show of all time, "The Simpsons" was #3 on the top TV searches.
- No "sex/pr0n" searches included here? You can't deny what's really on our minds, Google!
posted by Down10 at 3:47 PM on December 24, 2001


I sense that Lycos is getting hammered by a few script kiddies who have a penchant for Dragon Ball, and not because people are still fans of that stale Anime show.
posted by Down10 at 3:51 PM on December 24, 2001


I watched Loft Story when I was in Paris this spring. It was screamingly popular, and my American expat friends were completely hooked despite the show's resemblance of Real World crossed with Big Brother.

At least at the time, it was fast becoming the most popular show EVER on French television.
posted by arielmeadow at 5:50 PM on December 24, 2001


What I am personally wondering about is why Mariah Carey is on the top ten list of women. From what I gather her popularity is steadily declining after her film bombed as well as the soundtrack cd that she released along to go with it. The only explanation I could find for her unlikely appearance on the list is that people are searching for her out of their interest in her rather shaky and tabloid-material life stories (i.e her "mental breakdown") rather than in her music.
posted by gregb1007 at 10:13 PM on December 24, 2001


I know for a fact that Lycos strips (pardon the pun) out any sexual searches. I used to work for a Canadian subsidary of Lycos, and the search producer there used to show me the list of sex searches he filtered out of the top 50 list. Pretty amusing, if sad - kind of reminded me of when I used to work in a photo lab...

As for Loft Story: it was pretty terrible, but massively popular. When I was in France it was on the cover of every single magazine - and there was some big furor about how one of the contestants was a wild, go-go dancer. The Real World done Parisian-style - lots of sex and some really cheesy looking guys.
posted by theNonsuch at 10:20 PM on December 24, 2001


France's literary take on Big Brother. Four writers, one novella, four bedrooms--"Vous Connaissez la Nouvelle?" ("Do You Know The Story?")--the follow-up to "Loft Story."
posted by Carol Anne at 5:14 AM on December 25, 2001


LI sense that Lycos is getting hammered by a few script kiddies who have a penchant for Dragon Ball, and not because people are still fans of that stale Anime show.

You are obviously not a nine-year-old boy. My son and I periodically scour the web for DBZ links, and so do all his friends. DBZ is very hot right now because of Cartoon Network's relentless promotion of it.
posted by rodii at 8:42 AM on December 25, 2001


I just want to know where all the Enron links went...

Apparently there are more 9-year-olds surfing for Dragonball Z than there are financially responsible/interested adults on the internet.

I seem to recall days when the top sites were those showing sports scores and stock quotes on a 15 minute delay. Of course, that was when I was 15 and trying to figure out what was so cool about the internet...where are the games?
posted by jacobw at 9:25 AM on December 25, 2001


Wow, "enabling NetBEUI in Windows XP" didn't appear on the list. Heh.
posted by Foosnark at 9:56 AM on December 27, 2001


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