Google used its Zeitgeist tools to sort through “billions of Google searches to capture the year’s 10 fastest-rising global queries and the rest of the spirit” over the past year. According to Google, we were most curious, confused, and enamored with Rebecca Black, whose fluke single “Friday” was absolutely inescapable last spring. Google+ came in at second place—and the Zeitgeist list includes all sorts of data used to measure the search query’s rise. Jackass star Ryan Dunn is at No. 3, having passed away in a car accident on June 20. EA’s first-person shooter video game, Battlefield 3, is at No. 5, its search numbers jumping 1,773% from 2010. Others on the top 10 list are more expected: iPad 2, iPhone 5 (which we all now know is the iPhone 4S), Casey Anthony, Adele, the evacuation of Japan’s Fukushima plant, and of, course, Steve Jobs.
Continue reading at Fukushima and Rebecca Black: What the World Searched For in 2011
