You can tell the year is dragging to a close when Google Zeitgeist appears, listing the fastest-rising (and falling) searches of the year. In 2007, it’s probably no surprise that the search taking the honors is the iPhone, which has to be Product of the Year.
The list contains few astonishing terms, although social network Badoo, which hit the second spot, is a bit of a dark horse. Beyond that, Facebook (3), YouTube (6), Second Life (8) and ClubPenguin (10) could very likely have been predicted without a crystal ball. Perhaps the only astonishment is that the list isn’t even more packed with social networking sites.
Swelling out the top ten are video sharing site Daily Motion, Webkinz (the site for stuffed animals), web messenger ebuddy and Hi5.
And the big loser of the year? It’s searches for the World Cup. It made the top ten last year (notably a World Cup year) but has dropped like a stone in 2007, followed by searches onMozart.