The Top 10 Searches of the Decade

Search

Tired of reading lengthy analyses of the decade we just left behind?  My employer Razorfish has a solution: a visual depiction of the major trends affecting search engine marketing throughout the past 10 years.   A Decade in Search is a rich media experience that touches upon major trends and events ranging from the bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2000 to the launch of Google Caffeine in 2009.  According to A Decade in Search, the top 10 searches of the 2000s were:

1. Facebook

2. Baidu

3. MySpace

4. World Cup

5. Wikipedia

6. Britney Spears

7. Harry Potter

8. Shakira

9. Lord of the Rings

10. Barack Obama

To get insights about the decade ahead for search, please check out Razorfish Search Marketing Trends.  Meantime, do any of the Top 10 searches surprise you?

Who are the top 50 social brands?

Recently Infegy published its March 2009 list of of the hottest social brands on the market — the names that have the strongest reach across the digital world as measured by a number of factors.  Some observations:

  • The Top 5 are not surprising: Twitter, Google, Obama, the iPhone, and Facebook.  But four years ago, did you ever think you’d see the day when a U.S. president would battle Twitter, Google, the iPhone, and Facebook for top billing?
  • I counted three games inside the Top 20 list: XBox (ranked 14), Playstation (#15), and Wii (#17). Anyone surprised that Wii ranked behind XBox and Playstation?
  • It’s not surprising that Wikipedia made the list.  What’s surprising is that Wikipedia ranks only #44.  This is a brand that was created to be inherently social.
  • Look for Kindle (#42) to steadily climb the list — I wonder if Kindle will even gives Amazon (#16) a run for its money?
  • General Motors (#26) ranks ahead of MySpace (#29).

I did a double take when I saw GM rank ahead of MySpace and wondered if this list represented only the “most discussed,” not necessarily “top,” social brands.  But then my Razorfish colleague Megan Anderson told me about a lunch meeting she’d had at SxSW with Christopher Barger, GM social media director.  His team has been on Twitter since January 2008 and runs GMBlogs.com.  Moreover, all GM brands have YouTube channels.

As Megan wrote to me in an email, “The thing that made the biggest impression on me was that their team is very dedicated to clarifying any questions or confusion regarding the situation [GM is] in right now.  When the [Federal] bailout was announced for the automotive industry, they were up all night answering tweets (@gmblogs).”   Megan also directed me to this SxSW panel discussion in which Christopher was a participant.

What do you think of the Top 50 list?