Your favorite Mountain View Company announced, as usual, the Google Zeitgeist 2011, namely the user queries the most common in 2011 on its search engine in over fifty countries. True to custom, the Internet giant opted for a multimedia way to publicize more what people looked at on the site during the year.

Zeitgeist, the classification which is intended to describe the “spirit of our time,”  comes in its eleventh edition of extrapolating meanings that exude the queries made ​​on the most important search engine in the world.

According to the website, worldwide, most people were looking for the 13-year-old Rebecca Black, whose music video for the single “Friday” took in 167 million hits on YouTube. She was followed by Google’s own social network, Google+ and Ryan Dunn, who had become well known for his stunts in the MTV series Jackass and died in late June at the age of 34 years in a car accident.

The search terms showing the fastest growth worldwide in 2011:

1. Rebecca Black, with its famous clip Friday.

2. Google +, the social network home.

3. Ryan Dunn from Jackass, who died in an accident car.

4. Casey Anthony, whose verdict “not guilty” in the death of her daughter, divided America.

5. Battlefield 3, the blockbuster Activision, which just passed the one billion dollars in sales.

6. The iPhone 5, the phone with a curved design

7. Adele, who explodes on the music scene in the UK and US.

8. Fukushima, the disaster that shocked Japan.

9. Steve Jobs, who died October 5, 2011.

10. The iPad 2, which dominates store shelves, despite the release of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

The death of Steve Jobs, the music videos of Adele and the launch of different tablets were also placed in the top 10 most visited topics.

In addition to the most sought after topics such as news, celebrities’ images, Zeitgeist rankings also includes the usual selected subject categories – such as the most popular car brands, football topics, destinations and products. The Zeitgeist also breaks down terms into a variety of categories at the global level, including fastest rising, fastest falling, fastest rising in entertainment, fastest rising in sports, fastest rising consumer electronics, fastest rising food and drinking, and fastest rising people.

Google Plus Ahead of Facebook in Rising Search List

Google, which look at each term increase over the previous year, does not specify whether the figures for Google+ were correlated with absolute volume.  Google Maps and Google News feature in fastest rising category accounting 7^th and 9^th place.

In second place is the social network of the company, Google +, created in June this year, which surprised many. The net was marked by the famous “circles” of friends and the “hangout” platform that enables online meetings for entire groups.

The platform achieved an incredible feat by reaching 25 million users in less time than its competitors, drawing a line in the sand.  The social network grabbed the #2 position in fastest rising searches after Google+ and related search like Google Plus.  Among others that interest users are Google Earth Plus (rising search at 15%), Google Plus Facebook (rising search at 13%), Google Chrome Plus (rising search at 9%) and Chrome Plus (search at 9%).

Google Plus also gained  media coverage with celebrity sign ups and a steady stream of new features introduced for businesses and brands. Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, was probably the celebrity sign up that garnered the most attention, considering his rival status.

Dubbed as “Google Plus Pages,” the service helps businesses create a presence on the social network platform for connecting with their users locally and worldwide. Companies like Pepsi, Toyota and Barcelona Football club have already set up special pages on the Google Plus social network.

The number of people going to Google on a daily basis rivals virtually all other properties out there. The +1 button is Google’s way of tracking who all is recommending and interacting across the web. E.g. Typing in “+YouTube” goes straight to the Google+ YouTube Page and automatically adds YouTube to your circles on Google+ for easy following.

The real question is whether or not Google+ will beat out Facebook in the end? Google Plus is the future of search branding and marketing, encouraging the brand-to-user and user-to-brand experience through more warm and personal engagement. The network is still in its early days and the social platform is going to get better as it continues to add new features and improve its services.