Thursday, September 2, 2010

Michael Jackson’s death thrust the singer to the top of yahoo.com internet searches in 2009, putting an end to Britney Spears’ four-year reign and helping bump US President Barack Obama from the top ten list.

Although the year was dominated by recession, the most clicks still went to what distracts web surfers the most, with NASCAR, actress Megan Fox, reality star Kim Kardashian, and the film ‘Twilight’ replaced four actresses on last year’s top list.

Until June, when Jackson died of a drug overdose, Obama’s inauguration garnered the most web traffic, said Vera Chan, web trend analyst at Yahoo Inc.

“When the news of Michael Jackson’s death came out the traffic was overwhelming, and surpassed that,” she said.

The death had all the elements of intrigue and tragedy. It was sudden, shocking and eerily familiar, according to Chan.

“And then his case was ruled a homicide so it’s an ongoing crime investigation. His death is unresolved,” she added.

Breaking news increasingly drove searches this year.

While Obama dropped from third in 2008 to 44th in 2009, the political focus shifted from the election campaign to specific policies.

The phrase “stimulus plan” placed fourth and health care reform was sixth among Obama-related searches.

Among finance-related searches carried out, the words coupons and unemployment topped a list that also included cash for clunkers, student loans, foreclosures, and government jobs.

The economy “was definitely a distinction from the previous years, how much people are monitoring the financial situation”, Chan said.

The overall top ten is “often just a snapshot of our distractions, our guilty pleasures, and breaking news”, she added.

Spears, the singer whose personal meltdown captured headlines for the last few years, dropped to fifth place in the overall list, just behind Fox, the sex symbol star of the films ‘Jennifer’s Body' and ‘Transformers’, and just ahead of Japanese magna cartoon Naruto.

“Britney was number one for four years in a row, and not all of those years were pleasant years for her,” said Chan.

“For her well being, and for our well being, I think we’re happy that we don’t have to check up on her.”

‘Twilight’ came in second on the list, followed by WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment), Fox and Spears.

Naruto captured sixth place, with the reality show American Idol, Kardashian, NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) and the online role-playing fantasy game Runescape rounding out the top ten.

Yahoo accounted for 18 per cent of US online searches in October, compared to 65.4 per cent market share for Google Inc, according to analytics firm comScore.

However, Yahoo’s search data is from the company’s dot-com sites only.

The Yahoo top ten

1. Michael Jackson
‘The King of Pop’ is number one, a chart position he was very familiar with during his career.
However, it’s not his music that propelled him back to the top but his shock death on June 25 at his mansion in Los Angeles.
The world has been fascinated since with the ongoing investigation into the cause of death, with conspiracy theories rampant.

2. ‘Twilight’
This teen vampire flick has been a movie phenomenon, with girls going mad for its star, heartthrob Robert Pattinson, who plays the lovelorn vampire Edward Cullen.
The sequel, ‘The Twilight Saga: New Moon’, took $42.5m in its opening weekend in the United States.

3. WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment)
Professional wrestling is a massive industry in the United States and also exported to countries around the globe.
However, the emphasis is more on the spectacle than the sport, with the championship full of heroes and villains.

4. Megan Fox
Fox shot to international fame in the action blockbuster ‘Transformers’, in which she played sultry love interest Mikaela Banes to the star Shia LeBoeuf.
Fox’s skimpy costumes and sexy looks have been as much a draw for audiences as the giant robots that cost millions of dollars to create using special effects.

5. Britney Spears
Tumbling from number one to five, the fallen pop princess clearly needs to find some new publicity stunts, or big hits, to get her climbing back up the web chart.
Divorces, custody cases, head shaving, diets and lip-syncing are clearly not enough anymore.

6. Naruto
A Japanese Manga comic series about a young ninja who strives for recognition.
A massive hit in Japan, the series is fast becoming a hit elsewhere in the world too, including in the US, Canada, United Kingdom and Australia.

7. ‘American Idol’
A hit TV show in which members of the public try to win a lucrative singing contract by wading through a series of auditions before having to make live performances.
Standing in their way to super-stardom are the voting public and a panel of judges including pop gurus Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson.

8. Kim Kardashian
Star of the reality TV show ‘Keeping Up with the Kardashians’, Kardashian, 29, is a big hit with the American public, whether she is posing in a bikini, giving up cheeseburgers or just doing the day job - being generally glamourous and famous.

9. Nascar
The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing is one of the most popular sports in the United States.
Drivers race around a track in cars that on the surface look like their road counterparts but underneath are high-powered racing vehicles.
And to add to the excitement, the cars are designed to withstand side-to-side contact as they slide around the track.

10. Runescape
An online, multiplayer roleplaying game with about ten million players worldwide.
The game takes place in the world of Gielinor, a fantasy realm divided into various kingdoms, regions and cities.
Players travel around the imaginary world, completing quests, battling monsters and gathering treasure and experience to make their character more powerful. The game has created spinoffs in the form of books and console games.