The first 4 months of 2009 have seen image searches online continue to rise. The most searched for images are often some of the most surprising searches to look at. Many are predictable, but others demonstrate a lifestyle choice, fan base or general curiousity that other searches don't always reveal.
Here is the list to date:
1. Obama - no surprise here then. Barack Obama dominates the search figures although you'd think there was a plentiful supply of his picture without people having to search for it!
2. Twilight - this one puzzles us! Twilight? Now there are lots of very nice 'twilight' images, but why would it be so popular? Then we realised - it is people searching for Twilight as in the movie - a romantic fantasy film about a teenager that falls in love with a vampire. Big business, apparently.
3. Selena - we knew this one. It surprised us with its high position, but Selena Gomez, star of many a Disney production, is a rising star in search terms - up 300% in 2009.
4. Jonas Brothers - yet more Disney, the Jonas Brothers are no doubt benefitting from their millions of teenage fans.
5. Miley Cyrus - we're surprised that she was topped by Selena Gomez and the Jonas Brother, but the alter-ego of Hannah Montana remains ever popular.
6. Joker - this is probably now immortalised by the stunning performance in Batman from Heath Ledger, and searches for the Joker show no signs of slowing with a 200% rise over 2008.
7. Megan Fox - we have no idea why so many people would want to see pictures of Megan Fox. Honest. But we're going to go look again in the interests of public research.
8. Lil Wayne - well we're being serious when we say we have absolutely no idea who 'Lil Wayne' was. Anyway, it turns out that he's a rapper. So there, now you know.
9. Te Amo - this is people searching for the 'I love you' pictures, cartoons, photographs etc under the spanish term. Cute.
10. Tattoos - we've never quite got tattoos, but millions of people obviously do because they're up 40% in 2009 so far (in image search terms).
There are some fairly obvious trends appearing here - you can quickly figure out that the vast majority of Google Image Searches are performed by those users in younger age groups.
There are signs of major rising stars that'll be entering this list in the near future though - as we show in our Commentary column on the right of this page.
Image searches vary widely and they don't always follow the trend of normal web searches. They're certainly used by a much younger audience than standard searches and you might be surprised to learn that a good proportion of people using Google don't even know that 'Image' search exists!
There isn't a huge amount more to say on these findings other than to keep an eye on the following female image searches that Selena Gomez is being threatened by - all rapid risers at the moment:
Cheryl Cole +2,050%
Wow! How much of an increase!? Cheryl Cole, star of Britpop group Girls Aloud and judge on The X Factor is flying into the cosmos with image searches. The rest pale in comparison, but here they are anyway:
Keeley Hazell + 130%
Kim Kardashian + 110%
Jennifer Aniston + 90%
Angelina Jolie + 70%
Scarlett Johansson + 50%
It's interesting to note that another female who has been popular was Sarah Palin, though her searches were of a 'breakout' nature - vast numbers of people searching for pictures of her in a very short space of time. Breakout searches are rarely prolonged.
It goes without saying that Michelle Obama was incredibly popular too - and we suspect a lot of searching for her is lost in the 'Obama' surname searching.
This is just one of many articles we've published. You can see the full index HERE.
