Top ten searches of 2008 on google

It’s that time of year again when Google release their zeitgeist listing the most searched for terms of 2008 split out by country – it’s like having your very own research director except you don’t get to ask specific questions.
Top tens though work well I find – it’s a proven editorial technique alongside top trumps and image galleries.

I’m always amazed though how much information the search giant is prepared to share with us the general public. Obviously it’s an edited set of data – I know for instance despite appearances some terms searched for will never appear on this top ten list.

Unlike the AOL search data nothing personally identifiable is available – although this is more to do with it being aggregated and not the raw data.

Google is in a unique position to show trends but importantly as a yearly round up this also gives us a great insight into the hopes and fears of the online population.

In the UK for instance there has been a lot of press about the banking crisis and this has meant that banks and banking in general have been popular search terms – icesave for instance was in the media for weeks so it’s no surprise that it appears top of the financial institutions list. I’m surprised though that Northern Rock hasn’t made it into the top ten considering it’s plight earlier in the year.

Fastest rising finance-related searches in the UK
icesave
hot uk deals
natwest
hmrc
hbos
money saving expert
halifax
barclays
rbs
lloyds tsb

The most searched terms in the UK for 2008 though are
Facebook
BBC
YouTube
eBay
Games
News
Hotmail
Bebo
Yahoo
Jobs

Although if you are interested the fastest rising search terms in the UK which might indicate trends for 2008 are
iPlayer
Facebook
iPhone
Youtube
Yahoo Mail
Large Hadron Collider
Obama
Friv
Cam4
Jogos

If you are interested in the most searched for politicians or recipes then you can find the rest of the top ten search terms over at Google zeitgeist

Social vs Professional

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I don’t want everyone I know to know everyone else that I know.
It’s like when you split up from someone and you suddenly lose a group of friends because they were better friends with your now ex partner.
Imagine this in the online world. It would be a nightmare. You have a spat with someone in the office and all of a sudden everyone in your social network is also affected or vice versa.

I use LinkedIn for my professional network and it works well. I use Facebook, Friendster, Thingbox and AIMPages and any number of others for social networking. Essentially whenever I get an invite I join one and when I see one I want to test or evaluate I join it and invite my friends. What I tend not to do is invite the same group of people to all of them.

There are some people with whom I get on with really well on my social networks that I would never put in my professional network the results would be far too unpredictable. Likewise there are people on my professional network I would never invite onto Facebook.

Anyway back to the point. LinkedIn is considering opening their platform to developers if you believe techcrunch and others, or likely will create an app for facebook. I’m struggling to see the market. I know in an ideal world everything would be interoperable but in the real world I think it would cause more problems than it would solve.

Now of course some software manufacturers have entered the fray. Notably IBM’s Lotus Connections which has a delicious style social bookmarking element, a blogging element – despite most companies looking at ways of reigning in the blogosphere rather than promoting it- and profiles.

Social Network Sites

So Facebook is the new MySpace which was the new Friendster which was the new Tribe etc etc.
I was chatting with Davo and he quite rightly said something Anna and I have been banging on about for years. By the time you get to grips with the new site and make your profile nice and complete with pictures and information all your mates have messed off to the new next best thing. Now I’ll admit I’m fickle and am usually one of the first to get bored and move on but it brings me back to the idea of FOAF or at least something similar. I think what’s needed is a social networking site mashup where you can pull in bits from all your other profiles.
Of course the bigger problem with social networking sites is the fact that on-line unlike off-line anyone can be your friend and can see who your other friends are. Off-line we tend to keep our social groups separate we all do it to some degree but on-line you can’t. So my work colleagues can see my drinking buddies which is not necessarily a good thing!