While not everyone chooses to search online via Google’s search engine, I think it’s fair to say that the majority of users do. In fact, Google clocked up trillions of searches worldwide during 2014.
The most searched event during the year was the unfortunate passing of popular comedian and actor Robin Williams. According to Google, Robin Williams untimely death in August prompted all sorts of folk all round the world to search for more information, revisiting some of his most iconic film and TV roles, as well as inspiring many to research depression and mental health issues.
The standout campaign of the year was undoubtedly the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, which involved dumping cold water on people and managed to accumulate almost $100 million in donations to help find a cure for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s Disease.
As usual, sports again featured high on the search charts during 2014 – from the World Cup in Brazil to the Winter Olympics in Sochi – as sports fans everywhere kept up with their favorite stars and events over the internet.
Of course, we also suffered our fair share of bad news; in addition to Robin Williams’ unfortunate passing; 2014 saw the mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the Ebola outbreak, the tragedy of Malaysia Airlines flight 17, and ISIS also dominate Google’s search as people sought information, answers, and in some cases comfort, on the internet.
All this and much more has been cleverly aggregated into a special Google website dubbed “A Year in Search” which presents the top stories (searches) of 2014 in a really interesting and intuitive manner. Well worth a look see: https://www.google.com/trends/2014/
Regardless of your search engine of choice, or whatever your interests, Google’s “A Year in Search” presentation is a great way to look back and reminisce on the events of 2014.
Excellent presentation Jim.