Annual Google Zeitgeist identifies brands in the news

Locally, a number of brands made it onto the list of fastest rising searches, including new pay television entrant TopTV, super-sized lotto game Powerball, local go-to page for news News24 and ISP Afrihost, thanks to its genius marketing offer of 1GB of free ADSL data for life.

The list might still be dominated by global pop sensation Justin Bieber (he vacationed in SA in September) and hip hop artist Nicki Minaj but local electro hop music duo Locnville and Zef-rap trio Die Antwoord showed they were two of the most talked-about local acts around this year.

The least obvious entry on the list must be for moshi monsters - it's a free, online game encouraging users to adopt a pet monster.

The list of most popular searches are dominated by global brands Facebook, Gmail/Google, Gumtree, Yahoo and YouTube, with a single local brand thrown in for good measure, namely Absa, mostly thanks to the hard-to-remember direct URL to its digital banking platform, I imagine.

To recap, free email, social media, jobs (not Steve), games and news were what South Africans most wanted to find online.

Jack Parow, the other Zef Afrikaans act, was the most-searched for South African personality on Google this year, followed by Julius Malema. The rest of the list is dominated by international music, entertainment and sport stars.

The Haiti earthquake was one of the biggest news stories of the year, and it dominates two of the top three search terms. Julius Malema kept shooting his mouth off, which placed him second on the list for fastest-rising news searches.

The 2010 FIFA World Cup finally features with three on the list, including Bafana, World Cup, and soccer. The world cup could also have influenced Cape Town's positioning on the list (the BBC headquartered its world cup broadcast from the city).

Oddly Wikileaks, the Iraq War Logs and Cablegate don't make it onto the list, not here nor on the global list, which is at least mildly suspicious.

What do people use their mobiles for? Social media (including Facebook and Mxit), music, games, news and love. Yup, sounds about right.

In terms of the world cup, Bafana Bafana beat expectations, both on the field and on the most searched-for list. Fan parks, flags, songs and an octopus provided the rest of the gees.

YouTube meanwhile released its list of the most watched videos on its service during 2010.

While no South African videos made the official Top 10, Die Antwoord scored big with Enter the Ninja (the video on the official Die Antwoord page has scored 8 701 565 and counting views to date).

Locnvilles' '6 Second Poison', JR featuring HHP with 'Show Dem (Make the Circle Bigger)' and Jack Parow's 'Dans, Dans, Dans' featuring Francois van Coke, also garnered local interest according to Julie Taylor, communications manager for Google Sub-Saharan Africa.

"Don't touch me on my studio" became a classic moment in South African television history after a scrap between e.tv anchor Chris Maroleng, then AWB secretary-general Andre Visagie and political analyst Lebohang Pheko. The video lives on on YouTube.

Julius Malema calling a BBC journalist a "bastard" and an "agent", before having him ejected from a press conference, also generated significant interest on the site.

For more:

• Google Zeitgeist Global 2010: www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist2010/
  
• Google Zeitgeist South Africa 2010: www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist2010/regions/za.html
  
• Google Zeitgeist South Africa 2009: www.google.com/intl/en_us/press/zeitgeist2009/regional.html#south-africa

• YouTube: www.youtube.com/rewind