Chatroulette, iPad Top Google 2010 Search Rankings

The end of the year is approaching and that means it's time to review Google's Zeitgeist compilation of 2010's most searched categories.

If you thought searches for Apple's iPad were the most frequent search, you would be wrong, but close: the iPad placed second to Chatroulette, the Russian-based site that has been the most searched for site in 2010 so far. The standings are likely to remain pretty much in place, barring a sudden surge by some unexpected item.

Reflecting its embrace by users, the iPad was the runaway search winner in the Zeitgeist list's consumer electronics category. Apple also scored in second place in consumer electronics with its iPhone 4 smartphone. The remaining searches on the consumer electronics list, in order of popularity, were: Nokia 5530, HTC EVO 4G, Nokia n900, BlackBerry apps, Duracell mygrid, Otterbox, and pdanet.

Chatroulette, which enables random users to chat with each other, topped out the list even though its service was interrupted briefly in mid-year, only to return stronger than ever. Most searchers were U.S. males. The site was created by Andrey Ternovsky who was a 17-year-old high school student in Moscow when he founded the site.

The "fastest rising" category found twitter in the eighth position placing ahead of Facebook, in the tenth position. Social networking application MySpace Layouts made the list in a negative way: it was the eighth fastest falling search term, behind swine flu, which was first in the category.

In announcing the results this year, Google offered users the opportunity to create their own search lists. "Create your own lists of 'most popular' and 'fastest rising,'" said Google, adding that the lists can be created for different geographic regions.

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