"Whitney Houston", "Gangnam Style" Led Top Searches in 2012

Earlier this week, Google released their "year-end Zeitgeist" for 2012.

According to Google, the year-end Zeitgeist is a view into "what searches revealed about the interests, passions and issues for the year."

The search engine giant revealed that people have completed 1.2 trillion searches so far in 2012, spread out over a total of 146 different languages.

Google broke down their top searches by category (searches, images, athletes, events, etc) and region (worldwide, United States, Canada, etc).

Let's start by looking at the top 10 searches worldwide in 2012:

1. Whitney Houston
2. Gangnam Style
3. Hurricane Sandy
4. iPad 3
5. Diablo 3
6. Kate Middleton
7. Olympics 2012
8. Amanda Todd
9. Michael Clarke Duncan
10. BBB12

The top ten events:

1. Hurricane Sandy
2. Kate Middleton Pictures Released
3. Olympics 2012
4. SOPA Debate
5. Costa Concordia crash
6. Presidential Debate
7. Stratosphere Jump
8. Penn State Scandal
9. Trayvon Martin shooting
10. Pussy Riots

The top ten consumer electronics:

1. iPad 3
2. Samsung Galaxy S3
3. iPad Mini
4. Nexus 7
5. Galaxy Note 2
6. Play Station
7. iPad 4
8. Microsoft Surface
9. Kindle Fire
10. Nokia Lumia 920

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As mentioned, you can break down the results by country as well.

For instance, the top 10 "What is…" searches in 2012 in the United States were:

1. What is SOPA
2. What is Scientology
3. What is KONY
4. What is Yolo
5. What is Instagram
6. What is Pinterest
7. What is Lent
8. What is Obamacare
9. What is iCloud
10. What is planking

Or, the top 10 searches of local places in Google Maps for residents of the United States:

1. Hotel
2. Restaurant
3. Walmart
4. Apartment
5. Starbucks
6. Target
7. Parking
8. Bank
9. Camping
10. Home Depot

Source: Google.com - Google Zeitgeist 2012

Filed under: Internet Companies