Economic matters seemed to have weighed heavily on the minds of Indians who used Google search this year, and ‘Budget 2009’ was the top ‘fastest rising’ search query.
‘Satyam share price’ was also among the top five ‘fastest rising’ search queries from this part of the world during the year.
Google’s insights into annual search patterns and trends for 2009 also reveal that while ‘Michael Jackson’ topped the list of fastest rising search queries globally, he ranked sixth in a similar list pertaining to queries from India.
Google calls its search pattern analysis ‘Zeitgeist’ or the spirit of the times.
The ‘fastest rising’ queries are based on the most popular searches conducted in 2009, ranked on the basis of the increase in their popularity, compared with 2008.
But it was Kambakth Ishq that took the second place in the list, revealing the country’s preoccupation with things Bollywood, followed by IRCTC (the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Ltd.) Not surprising, because the IRCTC offers a hugely popular online train ticket reservation system.
Next came the Satyam query, followed by the one on Bhuvan, the Indian Space Research Organisation’s newly-launched geoportal.
In 2008, YouTube, Orkut, Katrina Kaif, cricket and IRCTC had occupied the first five positions in the ‘fastest rising’ search query list related to India. Rahul Gandhi was the politician most searched about on Google during the year, followed by Indira Gandhi, Sachin Pilot, Sarah Palin and P. Chidambaram. Incidentally, Sarah Palin topped the global list of the fastest rising search queries in 2008.
Among Bollywood celebrities, Katrina Kaif was still at number one in 2009, followed by Michael Jackson, Salman Khan, Aishwarya Rai and Shahid Kapoor. Compared with 2008, Salman and Aishwarya retained their ‘spots’ among the top five, while Hrithik Roshan (no 4) was edged out from the top 10 list and Kareena Kapoor (5) was pushed to the sixth spot this year.
Among the movies, Slumdog Millionaire stood third; Love Aaj Kal came first followed by Harry Potter. Coming after these three were Kaminey and Kambakht Ishq.
Social networking sites and tools found a place among the Indian top 10 fastest rising queries this year and the last year too, with Twitter at number seven.
