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What the world searched for in 2012: Whitney Houston, iPhone 5, Gangnam Style, SOPA, and more

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Google is out today with its 12th annual Zeitgeist report that provides us with insight into the most popular search queries over the year. Google is providing even more stats this year for more countries, with 838 different lists covering 55 countries around the globe. Other new additions to the Zeitgeist report include an interactive map on the 2012 Zeitgeist website and a new Android app (iOS in the works). Now for the stats…

Whitney Houston comes in at the No. 1 spot for top-trending search worldwide, followed by Gangnam Style by PSY. Both, of which, were also able to grab the No. 1 spots for many other lists worldwide. As for consumer electronics, iPad 3 lands at No. 1 for trending searches worldwide, followed by the Samsung Galaxy S3 and iPad mini.  Google walked us through some of the other topics that reached the top of the list in many countries:

People researched a breadth of other topics, too. Web users took a serious interest in threats to the open Internet, with proposals like SOPA and ACTA both finding their way to the top of many countries’ lists. The U.S. elections brought attention to the candidates and issues, not least the presidential campaigns’ most notorious political gaffes. And while it might not be surprising to see that tragic natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy ranked highly (#3 on the global trending list), it is reassuring to find searches like [donate to Sandy] spiking as well.

You can check out Google’s 2012 Zeitgeist website here for access to all 838 lists.

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Avatar for Jordan Kahn Jordan Kahn

Jordan writes about all things Apple as Senior Editor of 9to5Mac, & contributes to 9to5Google, 9to5Toys, & Electrek.co. He also co-authors 9to5Mac’s weekly Logic Pros series and makes music as one half of Toronto-based Makamachine.