2008 was full of events, with the US Presidential Elections, Beijing Olympics, Euro 2008, financial crisis and so many things. But what does Google tell us?
The US Elections was one of the most followed events this year, Sarah Palin was the fastest rising keyword on Google in 2008 worldwide, while Obama came 6th. However, in the USA, Obama was the fastest rising keyword, while Sarah Palin dominated Google’s news and images searches in the US.
Heath Ledger, the Australian actor who died earlier this year, was a hot topic on Google, ranking 5th among the fastest rising topics in 2008. His movies, Dark Knight, was the most searched movie trailer in the US.
In social networks, Facebook came first, followed by MySpace, hi5, orkut, and linkedin in the 5th position. The weird part is that the keyword “facebook login” was the 3rd fastest rising trend in 2008, why login?
It seems like the popularity of the boy band Jonas Brothers is rising, putting the band in the 10th position among Google’s fastest rising trends in 2008, and in the first position among concerts tickets in the US.
The most popular keyword in the United Arab Emirates was Dubai, the English term ranked 1st, while the Arabic came 5th, followed by UAE, ranking 2nd in English and 3rd in Arabic. YouTube is hot in the UAE, the English term ranked 9th among most popular trends, while the Arabic term made it to the list of fastest rising trends.
Hannah Montana and its main star Miley Cyrus were among the fastest rising topics this year in the UAE. Heath Ledger was a hot topic in the UAE, just like the rest of the world. Atlantis Dubai ranked 9th, that makes sense after the early buzz around the opening night. For some reason people in the UAE were searching for Bahrain Air, I’m not sure why.
UAE Trends:
source: Google Zeitgeist
Blackbird is an interesting new web browser/community that is made specially for African-Americans; after the president, now a special web browser, how cool is that! The new web browser features a couple of quick-buttons to check your e-mail and social networks. One of the buttons leads to a video community that features Afro-American video clips.
Search results as well can Afro-American oriented, searching for Obama give different results using the Black Search, unlike the traditional search, which returns the official Obama’s official website, Wikipedia page, facebook profile… etc. Here take a look!
This seems to be interesting, the Nokia Music Store (music.nokia.ae) is now live, but only in the UAE, for people who use Internet Explorer on Windows machines only, of course it’s accessible through mobiles. You can listen and download music, and other stuff, individual tracks cost AED 3, while complete albums cost AED 30, and for AED 20 per month subscribers will have unlimited PC streaming of the entire online catalog.
According to a research by Nokia, 80% of regular mobile and internet users in the UAE are using their mobile device to listen to music, with half of them doing so on a daily basis. Here take a look!
Nokia has revealed the outcomes of a research they conducted on 12,500 people in 13 countries: UK, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Australia, Brazil, China, UAE, Russia, Singapore, India, and South Africa, the survey was conducted during the period of 1 - 23 October 2008. 25% of people surveyed rely on online and mobile navigation tools to find their way around. 93% of surveyed people still get lost regularly, wasting 13 minutes each time they do.
According to the survey, Germany is the country with the world’s best sense of direction, well, it is also the country with the highest reliance on satellite navigation, third of people claimed to have never lost their way.
Many people use iconic landmarks such as statues, churches and bridges to give directions to strangers, but the Chinese prefer to use skyscrapers while people in Britain prefer to use local pubs, however, this is interesting, and wicked 
one in three Londoners admit to deliberately giving people the wrong directions, no wonder London is the most lost city according to this research.
The top five lost cities on the planet (based on the number of people who found it impossible to navigate around the city):
10% London
9% Paris
5% Bangkok
5% Hong Kong
4% Beijing
- 30 percent of people blame their partners for getting lost, either because they were fighting or shouting directions at them
- Dependence on technology is now such that one in four people claim they could not find their way without online maps and mobile satellite navigation
- One in ten Spaniards consider a sense of direction matures with age, like fine wine
- Indian men are the most likely people in the world to miss the birth of their child
- Nearly a quarter of Italians rely on mobile navigation devices to find their way
- Half of the Chinese depend on personal interaction for directions en-route
- The most popular excuse for getting lost by Asians is bad weather
- Russians have an alternative motive when it comes to asking for directions, with one in ten using it as an excuse to flirt
source
