In a recent article on Moneyweb I found some interesting information on the SA top searches on Google in 2005. Internationally there are no real surprises on what people are searching for: entertainment, gossip and information on disasters that have happened.

‘Janet Jackson’, after her somewhat revealing Superbowl performance and her brother’s high-profile shenanigans, topped the 2005 Google search terms.

‘Hurricane Katrina’ and ‘tsunami’ expectedly finished in the top three, with the term ‘xBox’ completing the top four. And what would the internet be without celebrities, good looks and gossip? Brad Pitt finished 5th, Michael Jackson 6th, American Idol 7th, Britney Spears 8th, Angelina Jolie 9th and Harry Potter 10th.

South African searches were somewhat disappointing, quite bland, to say the least.

The local flavour of the month was surprisingly dull. South Africans seemed to be more focused on the practical use of the web. The top three search terms were ‘Absa’, ‘Christmas’ and ‘Computicket’. Other highly used search terms included ‘webmail’, ‘Kulula’, ‘www.fnb.co.za’ and ‘Standard Bank’.

These statistics prove to us that in South Africa the internet is still seen as more of a business tool than a source of entertainment. But with some great blogs growing in popularity hopefully these stats will change by 2007, and our rainbow nation will be searching for better things than “Standard Bank” and “Absa”!