Music

Rebecca Black 2011's fastest-rising search

Relaxnews, AFP
December 30, 2011

First Published: 15:37 IST(30/12/2011)
Last Updated: 20:02 IST(30/12/2011)

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Rebecca Black: The teenager shot to fame in March 2011 when the leaked video for her vanity single "Friday" went viral on YouTube. Black has since released two further singles under her own record label.

Teenage singer Rebecca Black came to public attention when her dubious singing efforts were leaked on YouTube. The publicity surrounding her song Friday and her subsequent efforts have, according to Google, made her the fastest-rising search of 2011. Rebecca Black's vanity single Friday

dubbed by some as the "worst song ever," was leaked on YouTube and went viral on March 11, 2011, attracting millions of views in a few days.

The singer quickly became a hot topic on social networks such as Twitter and regularly trended worldwide. Despite initially being upset at the criticism Friday received, Rebecca Black has now turned her full attention to music. Google announced on December 15 that the singer topped its annual Zeitgeist report of the fastest-rising searches in 2011.

In second place was Google's social network and Facebook rival Google +, which was initially released in invite-only mode on June 28 before opening to everyone aged over 18 on August 6.

Former star of TV program Jackass Ryan Dunn, who died in a car accident on June 20 this year, was 2011's third fastest-rising search term, followed by Casey Anthony, who was arrested, charged and acquitted of the murder of her baby Caylee Anthony in a case that gripped the US and the world earlier this year.

Popular first person shooter Battlefield 3, which was released in North America on October 25, was this year's fifth fastest-rising search term around the world, according to Google.

A device that never existed -- the iPhone 5 -- was the sixth fastest-rising search term of 2011. The device was rumored to be in existence and many Apple fans expected it to be released in 2011, but Apple's new CEO Tim Cook surprised fans with the release of the iPhone 4S instead at the Let's Talk iPhone event on October 4.

British recording artist Adele, whose record-breaking album 21 was released January 24, 2011, came in seventh position. In eighth place was the earthquake, tsunami and subsequent nuclear disaster that struck the Japanese prefecture of Fukushima ; the search term appeared in the Google Zeitgeist under the Japanese characters 東京電力.

Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who died on October 5 of this year, and one of his creations, the tablet computing device iPad 2, appeared in ninth and tenth places respectively.

Last year's fastest-rising search was, according to the 2010 Zeitgeist, the video chat website Chatroulette.

The fastest rising searches around the world in 2011 were, according to Google:

01.   Rebecca Black
02.   Google+
03.   Ryan Dunn
04.   Casey Anthony
05.   Battlefield 3
06.   iPhone 5
07.   Adele
08.   東京電力
09.   Steve Jobs
10.   iPad 2