Google Says Janet Jackson’s #1 … Take That Britney!

By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

As opposed to Yahoo’s Buzz Index, which rated Britney Spears #1 for the 3rd time in 4 years, Google has its Zeitgeist, and it’s results were considerably different. The top five searches were: Janet Jackson, Hurricane Katrina, tsunami, xbox 360, Brad Pitt. Interestingly, the top five searches on Froogle, Google’s price engine website, were iPod, digital camera, mp3 player, iPod mini, PSP.

We Say: By the way, the term “zeitgeist” is German in origin, and means “The spirit of the time; the taste and outlook characteristic of a period or generation,” according to Dictionary.com. It’s a bit comforting that at least two of Google’s highest ranked searches were about world events, but still disappointing that the top search was a celebrity, for reasons I expressed in my prior article about Yahoo’s Buzz Index. The take on Froogle is that it looks like portable electronics, especially MP3 players and games are really the hot ticket right now … which should come as no surprise to anyone.