2011 Searches on Bing Search Engine
Every December Google publishes their year-end Google Trends – Google year-end Zeitgeist – trying to define the passing year through search queries.
This year, Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, published its yearend Zeitgeist in late November, beating Google.
So How Was the Passing Year?
According to Bing’s Zeitgeist Justin Bieber, who had zero searches in 2008, is the most searched person in the third largest search engine in English speaking countries. The Canadian singer, who was in grade school when Google published their first Zeitgeist, managed to push Kim Kardashian, whose brief marriage upped her search queries in over 5000%, to the second place on the top ten people in 2011 search queries.
Justin Bieber was the only guy on the top ten list after Barack Obama, Tiger Woods and Jesse James (not the 19th century gunman, but a stunt motorcyclist from the reality show “Jesse James is a Dead Man“) where dropped out of the list. Justin led the list followed by singers, actresses and various reality show participants, searched thanks to the gossip that surrounds them, telling us more about what search engines are used for then about the Zeitgeist.
Leading Search Queries in 2011
Much like last year, Bing’s event list has many publicized trials such as the trial Michael Jackson’s Doctor was found guilty in (number 7), Casey Anthony’s acquittal of her daughter’s murder (number 1), celebrity deaths (Osama Bin Laden in number 2; Amy Winehouse at number 5) and natural disasters. Bing separated new events and entertainment, so it is hard to tell if the royal wedding was searched more times than Japan’s earthquake and where Lady Gaga’s egg stands compared to the 9-11 10th anniversary.
In sports, Maria Sharapova, and Caroline Wozniacki, led the top five (numbers 1, 3 and 5 accordingly), with Tiger Woods and Brett Farve in the list, and not for their athletic achievements.
Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol, yet to be released at the time, made the top of the list of searched movies. Mission Impossible 4 is set to be released in December 5th, 5 years after the last Mission Impossible movie.
Other Popular 2011 Search Queries
Xbox was topped the list of searched electronic products while the iPad, who led the 2010 search queries dropped to number five. The iPhone, whose 4G version reached number 2 in 2010, dropped to number 5 with the 4Gs.
Rebecca Black’s Friday was the most search viral video. It was removed from YouTube in June 2011, after getting 167 million views according to Wikipedia, over 3 million dislikes and parodies.