A Year in Search: Google Releases Top Searches in Malaysia during 2008

Google reveals the internet "Zeitgeist" (German for "the spirit of the times") through an exploration of the millions of search queries they receive every day. The fastest rising is more interesting that the most popular, because 'the fastest' rising gives better insights to the queries as it picks up the 'stars' of this years' search terms.

Under 'Google Zeitgeist' there is Google Trends which there are 4 categories may interest you:

Check out full description here.

For 2008, we see a year where Malaysians are politically savvier than previous years and have been actively searching for political news online. The general election held early this year was definitely still quite fresh on top of mind for Malaysian searchers, as blogs, news portals and political personalities are topping the searches.

  • It comes as no surprise that the general election held early this year was top of mind for Malaysian searchers. Anwar Ibrahim edges out Barack Obama to the top of the fastest rising personality searches list, while political blogs, including that of Mahathir’s ‘Chedet’, also rose to prominence, dominating the fastest rising bloggers list.
  • The Perodua Nautica, a locally manufactured SUV, is the outright winner among all car model searches done by Malaysians, beating out foreign car models by Honda and Toyota.
  • Terengganu beats Genting to bag the top spot for fastest rising local destinations as Malaysians move away from the highlands and onto the exotic beaches and islands of this coastal state.
  • Malaysians’ very own Olympic badminton medalist Lee Chong Wei beats all-around swimming champ Michael Phelps on the fastest rising Olympics searches list.

Most popular searches of 2008
  1. Youtube
  2. Yahoo
  3. Friendster
  4. Utusan
  5. Mp3
  6. Google
  7. Games
  8. Map
  9. Lyrics
  10. Myspace

Fastest rising searches of 2008
  1. Malaysiakini
  2. Facebook
  3. Harakah
  4. TV3
  5. Malaysia today
  6. Rapidshare
  7. Blogspot
  8. Youtube
  9. Malaysianinsider
  10. Beijing 2008

This proves that in the larger picture, many of Google's users are people who do not use browser history and bookmarks.

Check out the full list here.

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