As always around Christmas, people, blogs and newspapers evaluate the last year, and of course publish the predictions of the upcoming year. One of the topics discussed has been the most used words on the different networks and I thought that I would take a closer look at this, and see what parallels that we can draw from this.
Do we discuss and research the same topics equally on the different networks? Or is it very different? How come there are these similarities or differences?
Google, Bing, Facebook and Twitter have all published statistic of different kind that shows what has been trending on each network. Thought the statistics is presented and research differently I still think that we can compare them at some level.
The Search Engines: Google & Bing
Here is the list that Google and Bing presented:
| Google* | Bing | |
| 1 | Michael Jackson | Michael Jackson |
| 2 | ||
| 3 | Tuenti | Swine Flu |
| 4 | Stock Market | |
| 5 | Sanalika | Farrah Fawcett |
| 6 | New moon | Patrick Swayze |
| 7 | Lady Gaga | Cash for Clunckers |
| 8 | Windows 7 | Jon and Kate Gosselin |
| 9 | Dantri.com.vn | Billy Mays |
| 10 | Torpedo Gratis | Jaycee Dugard |
*Google published different lists of trending search terms this list is the one the named “Fastest Rising (Global)”
Google and Bing are two of the biggest search engines out there. Despite that the most search words are not that similar. The obvious one is Michael Jackson that has been trending on all networks. Other than that Twitter is the only other word that trends on both. Interestingly enough Facebook is not even on the top 10 on Bing, which makes me wonder, who are the people who use Bing and doesn’t use facebook? Or, perhaps, is it more common to type “facebook.com” wrong when using Google as a search engine versus useing Bing?
On Facebook’s blog they choose to share the most trending topics, thus not individual words or term that was mentioned. This means that the deaths of both Michael Jackson and Patrick Swayze goes under the topic “Celebrity Deaths.”
Here are the 15 most mentioned subjects on Facebook 2009:
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Twitter has so far not published a post about the most mentioned words in general. Instead they a published a blog post called “Top Twitter Trends of 2009” about the most mentioned words in the following categories: News event, People, Movies, TV Shows, Technology, Sports and Hashtags.
I’m going to show you the results of only 4 of them, those that tend to be more discussed on the other networks; News events, People, Technology and Hashtags.
| News events | People | Technology | #Hashtags | |
| 1 | #Iranelection | Michael Jackson | Google Wave | #musicmonday |
| 2 | Swine Flu | Susan Boyle | Snow Leopard | #iranelection |
| 3 | Gaza | Adam Lambert | Tweetdeck | #sxsw |
| 4 | Iran | Kobe (Bryant) | Windows 7 | #swineflu |
| 5 | Tehran | Chris Brown | CES | #nevertrust |
| 6 | #Swineflu | Chuck Norris | Palm Pre | #mm |
| 7 | AIG | Joe Wilson | Google Latitude | #rememberwhen |
| 8 | #uksnow | Tiger Woods | #E3 | #3drunkwords |
| 9 | Earth hour | Christian Bale | #Amazonfail | #unaccetable |
| 10 | #inaug09 | A-Rod (Alex Rodriquez) | Macworld | #iwish |
A closer look at some of the words
It is interesting to see that Facebook seem to be discussed on Google but not on Bing. On Facebook itself it seems to be talked about as “fb” and on Twitter it does not top in Technology. Is this because it does not fall under the category technology, or simply because other technologies were more popular?
Google Wave & Windows 7
Another interesting thing was that Window 7 made the top list on Google and Twitter. But the Google product Google Wave did only make the list on Twitter. Although there is came in first. The same thing goes for Google Latitude which came in 7 on Twitter. Perhaps this has to do with the face that they sorted them in topics and thus it might not have reached the general top 10?
Swine Flu
The flu that has been in talked about around the whole worlds kitchen tables did not reach the top then on either Bing or Google, though it was highly ranked on both Facebook and Twitter. How come? Does this show a lot of talk and no facts? As you would Google for news etc. But talk about “rumors?”
People
No one can have missed the death of Michael Jackson, as this even tops the Swine flu discussions. But other than that people on the different networks seems to value talking about different people. Lady Gaga who even made her own spot in the Facebook top 15, compared to “celebrity deaths,” and got in 7th on Google. She did not even reach the people topic on Twitter. Where Susan Boyle, and I assume the link the video was mentioned a lot. On bing Farrah Fawcett is the second most Googled individual, probably due to her death this year aswell. Why did difference in people? Has it to do with the “crowds” on the different networks?
Tiger Woods
Looking through this words the name Tiger Woods caught my attention, since he was not a person that I considered to be that “discussed” up until a few weeks ago. Thus, I wonder if the constant growth of twitter-users help to get trending topics in the end of the year a bigger chance to get mentioned here, compared to the other networks. Or perhaps the Tiger Woods drama was just something that everyone could talk about. What do you think? Am I on to something? Or do you think that he as been mentioned all year around.
Your conclusions
What do you think? Can you compare the results like this, or is it too many other factors that has to be considered? Do you see any other parallels?
I work as a web development manager at a swedish telecom carrier. I write about tips, tools and examples for better web experiences. 
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