Canadians Googling Britney

MONTREAL—Over the years, Canadians have shared a passion for such unifying institutions as hockey, beavers, and maple syrup.
Now, one of the world’s largest online search engines suggests we can add our penchant for Googling Britney Spears to that list.

Yesterday, California-based Internet giant Google released the most-popular Canuck search queries during the first 11 months of 2008.
Google said Canadians searched for Facebookmore than anything else, but the top-10 lists also suggest they queried en masse for Spears, the Green Party, and music lyrics.
It’s the first time Canadians have had a peek at their Google behaviour (American lists have been available annually since 2001) and the results provide interesting research fodder for pop culture enthusiasts.
Google also released similar results for 35 other countries around the world.
“You can get an indication, a kind of barometer of what’s in and what’s out,” University of Victoria media expert Kim Blank said about search-engine results.
“A long time ago when John Lennon said that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus, well, Google could have really proved it,” she added.
Facebook’s popularity shows that online relationships have become important to Canadians, said Google Canada spokesman Andrew Swartz.
The word Google was the sixth most-searched term in its own search engine, but Swartz said Canadians weren’t necessarily lost in cyberspace. He said these surfers might have been looking for Google tools, such as Google Maps, or they may have just punched in the word out of habit.
When it comes to political searches, the Greens didn’t win a seat in the House of Commons but the party did beat out the Conservatives, Liberals, NDP, and Bloc Quebecois in the Google ranking.
And with his run for the White House, U.S. president-elect Barack Obama’s search popularity rose faster than any other term compared with 2007.