Similar to what we saw from Google last year, and in years prior, the 2013 Google Zeitgeist has been released. For those not familiar with the Zeitgeist, this is essentially a look back at the year in search. Google notes how this is a chance for them to “reflect on people, places, and moments that captured the world’s attention throughout the year.” And as it takes a look back at everything, this is a mix of the good and bad that happened throughout the year.
Google has this broken down into a wide variety of categories, some of which include Top Trending, Events and Annual Events as well as People, both Trending and Most Searched. Needless to say, given the seeming overlap of categories, there will also be some overlap in names and topics. But that having been said, the Top Trending for 2013 including Paul Walker, Boston Marathon Bombing, Nelson Mandela, Cory Monteith and the iPhone 5s.
Shifting over to the Events category and we once again see the Boston Marathon. Also included on the Events lists was the Government Shutdown, VMAs, Moore, Oklahoma Tornado and the Royal Baby. Interestingly, the Zimmerman Trial, Typhoon Haiyan, New Pope, Syria Conflict and Mayweather vs. Canelo fight rounded out the top ten for 2013 events.
Google also takes a look at the top ten global trending searches for the year and those broke down as follows; Nelson Mandela, Paul Walker, iPhone 5s, Cory Monteith, Harlem Shake, Boston Marathon, Royal Baby, Samsung Galaxy S4, PayStation 4 and North Korea.
Some other highlights coming from 2013 included having more than 1.7 million video versions of the Harlem Shake having been uploaded to YouTube, which in addition to making it number 5 on the global list, also had it the second most trending video on YouTube for the year. And for those curious, the number one trending video on YouTube this year was Ylvis “The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?) by tvnorge.
While there are many more categories included in the Zeitgeist, we can close this post with the Top Trending Phones. This year that list included the iPhone 5s, Samsung Galaxy S4, iPhone 5c, HTC One, Nexus 5, BlackBerry 10, Moto X, LG G2 and the Nokia Lumia 1020.
SOURCE: Official Google Blog, Google Zeitgeist 2013
I felt the 2012 Zeitgist was much more powerful. This was good, but after re-watching the 2012 edition, this fell short for me, both in time and emotion.