Today, Google posted this year’s Zeitgeist, an interactive visual gadget showing what the world searched on Google in 2010. Google’s version of the world’s list of 2010’s most trending topics. We should be getting a Twitter one and possibly a Facebook one as well before the year closes.
On this year’s top global events list is the World Cup, the Olympics, the earthquake in Haiti, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and the Iceland ash cloud. Somehow I thought Wikileaks(or Cablegate) would be more popular than that ash cloud thingy. No?
Anyway, according to Google, of the 5 global events, Zimbabweans only searched on the World Cup and the Haiti earthquake. We didn’t care much about the oil spill, the Olympics or the ash cloud in Iceland. No surprises here for me.
Now onto Zimbabwe’s own top searches on Google this year, a lot has changed from last year. Well, a lot except our country’s name is still the top search term, followed by “facebook”. One big positive jump is “Gmail”. The web email service was the 7th most popular search term on Google last year, it jumped up to number 3 this year. Yahoo on the other hand, which was sitting at 3 last year has been knocked down to 5. Again, no surprises here.
Another interesting change is the popularity of the term “herald”, Zimbabwe’s state owned daily. The Herald was the 4th most popular search term in 2009. This year, that position’s been taken by the term “mail”, which, naturally, on Google points to Gmail. The Herald is down to number 6.
The term “lyrics” which strangely appeared on last year’s list at number 9, is off the top 10 list this year. Must mean older people are starting to use the Internet.
As for 2010’s rising searches, the World Cup is obviously at the top. Other interesting rising search terms include, “love”, “cars” and “bible”.
Not sure what to make of this. Please assist explaining this in the comments below; Why they love for love, cars and the bible? Why that mix?
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People making web searches on topics such love, mail and other social issues underscores the relevance and importance of the web to ordinary people. I don’t see searches on C++, Pascal, PostgreSQL making the top of the list for searches, not that these are not important but are often the domain of geeks one would associates with web.
Fact is the web is reaching into every fabric our lives underscoring its importance to us. Precisely why I salute the likes of Africom for bringing this platform to Zims at a reasonable price. Econet will get kudus from us once their prices dive downwards and the speed of their network matches or surpasses that of Africom.
I am bit surprised though that searches on health issues didn’t make it to the top of the list! Given all the debilitating diseases all around us I would have expected health issues at the top of Zim web searches. Hope a year from now we’ll see different metrics given the availability of better internet service in the country.
Geeks make up less than 1% of the people who use the web lol, especially in Zimbabwe. Here I am talking about true geeks, not people just people who know how to download and pirate stuff.
We need more people who build their own applications and add value to the web. I would like to see more Zimbabwean web applications by Zimbabweans, for Zimbabweans.
spot on dude.. Most “Zim Geeks are jus pirates”.
i wouldn’t call em geeks then, jus pirates. lol
You would have to be a little clever to torrent something and crack it lol. Thats where most geeks start lol.
Yes its true that most people who call them selves geeks in Zimbabwe dont even know what PostgreSQL is. But im positive that is about to change with the availabilty of better internet services, im sure we will start to see more applications(esp mobile based) developed locally as the internet economy takes root here.
The Google Zeitgeist site makes for interesting reading, though i realize that the top searches done in most African countries start with the countries’ name and most have similar trends.
Believe it people are searching for love on the net (with little success -no dating sites relevant to Zim)And they seek to prove just how cheap those Japanese cars are (often overlooking freight duty & other costs in their analysis) Then of course we are very religious & also seek a fancy virtual Bible to show off at church along with our new gadgets.
Well Said JamesM. Its all very exciting that the internet in Zim is finally becoming relevant to the ordinary folk.
Personally, I look forward not only to locally designed applications and services but also local based content (besides the news).
This is quite a big step, see that people are using the internet for things other than lyrics, music, movies and games shows a really big improvement in the use of the internet as a productive tool.
Despite such improvements, I thing when people use keywords like Gmail, Yahoo, Facebook or, http://www.facebook.com it shows that a lot of people need to familiarize with the use of the address bar and the other uses of search engine.
Question, Do you use Google to look up Gmail, Yahoo or Facebook? If you do not and you find someone using Google for such a search what comes to your mind?
The positive though in seeing people use such search terms is that it shows us that more new internet users are getting connected well at least getting to use the internet.
As far as keywords like “bible”, “cars” and “love” are concerned I think those keywords account for those people who are already familiar with the internet and are using it for gathering information, and planning their purchases. These three keywords are an indication that people are looking for information on spirituality, relationships and the best deals for their monies.
Zimbabwe’s top searches on Google quite differ from US’s, so I think you can compare: http://www.torrentoff.com