Bing On The Top Search Trends For 2012: Kardashian, Bieber & Gangnam Style

Bing’s biggest list to date includes nineteen categories, nearly doubling their hottest search topics in 2011, which was already a marked improvement over just two main celebrity search categories in 2010 and in 2009, which was Bing’s very first list of year-end top searches.

This year, the Bing search team also put together an interactive slideshow for the ten biggest categories, where you can mouse over the top 5 results in any category to reveal additional information and click through to the search query:

Notice you can share that blurb and exact search query directly to Facebook or Twitter:

Top People / Celeb Searches

Despite it being an election year in the US, top presidential candidates barely cracked the top 50, as Barack Obama came in as the 46^th most search person for the year, while Mitt Romney came in just ahead at 43^rd. Meanwhile, her royal highness Kate Middleton moved up to #12 in the overall list.

1. Kim Kardashian
2. Justin Bieber
3. Miley Cyrus
4. Rihanna
5. Lindsay Lohan
6. Katy Perry
7. Selena Gomez
8. Jennifer Aniston
9. Nicki Minaj
10. Taylor Swift

Justin was once again the sole male celebrity on the overall list, and his popularity may have propelled his teen queen girlfriend (on? off? who knows..) Selena Gomez into the top 10 this year.

Bieber did top the list of most searched for musicians, although the late Whitney Houston certainly attracted a number of searches around the time of her death, but also in subsequent interest in her final movie, Sparkle, released months after her death.

Chris Brown made the list as the other male recording artist, but it’s hard to know if people are searching for his skills on the pop charts, popping bottles or fists at the clubs in his spare time.

Top Musician Searches

1. Justin Bieber
2. Whitney Houston
3. Katy Perry
4. Selena Gomez
5. Rihanna
6. Nicki Minaj
7. Taylor Swift
8. Beyonce
9. Chris Brown
10. Jennifer Lopez

Top Song Searches

Let 2012 be known as the year of the catchy tune, or for the doomsday folks, the year the music died along with the Mayan calendar.

If for some crazy reason you are not one of the 800+ million people have who have viewed PSY’s “Official Gangnam Style” video on YouTube, it’s time to let go of being proud about it.

The good news it’s already beat out Justin Bieber for most views ever, so let’s push PSY over the edge to 1 billion total views. No matter what you think about the quality of the song you’ve got to appreciate the crazy video antics! It’s practically a law I have to embed it here now:

If you’re more old school about your dance crazes, I submit to you, the Gangnam Style / U Can’t Touch This mashup from the 2012 American Music Awards:

http://youtu.be/Onkl2gKrHPA

1. PSY- Gangnam Style
2. Carly Rae Jepsen – Call Me Maybe
3. Justin Bieber – Boyfriend
4. Gotye – Somebody that I used to know
5. Fun.- We Are Young
6. One Direction – What Makes You Beautiful
7. Drake – The Motto #YOLO
8. Maroon 5 Feat. Wiz Khalifa – Payphone
9. The Wanted- Glad You Came
10. Katy Perry- Part Of Me

Top Olympian Searches

1. Serena Williams
2. Lolo Jones
3. LeBron James
4. Michael Phelps
5. McKayla Maroney
6. Hope Solo
7. Misty May-Treanor
8. Gabby Douglas
9. Usain Bolt
10. Ryan Lochte

Hopefully McKayla is more impressed with her #5 ranking than the rest of us are with Ryan Lochte’s grill. Olympian Lolo Jones will have another shot at becoming a top searched Olympian before the Rio Summer Games, as she’s recently made the US Women’s Bobsled Team, there’s a chance she’ll turn up on the Sochi 2014 Winter roster.

Top Athlete Searches

1. Peyton Manning
2. Tiger Woods
3. Tim Tebow
4. Maria Sharapova
5. Kobe Bryan
6. Serena Williams
7. Lamar Odom
8. LeBron James
9. Cristiano Ronaldo
10. Terrell Owens

Top Tech Search Trends

Bing broke this out into two major categories: most searched for social networks and consumer electronics. While tablets and smartphones ruled the results pages, app searches were also hot – Bing noted that of the top 5 app searches, three were music players, with Spotify being among the most popular.

Most Searched Tech Apps: Social, music and games topped the list of most searched tech apps in 2012. Notably, Pandora was the number one most searched for app, with Words With Friends and I Heart Radio rounding out the top three.

Most Searched For Social Media Sites

1. Facebook
2. Twitter
3. Myspace
4. Linkedin
5. Tumblr
6. Instagram
7. Reddit
8. StumbleUpon
9. Digg
10. Klout

Hottest Tablet & Smartphone Searches

1. iPhone 5
2. iPad
3. Samsung Galaxy SIII / S3
4. Kindle
5. iPad 3
6. iPod Touch
7. Xbox
8. PlayStation 3
9. iPhone 4S
10. Windows 8

Top News Stories

While a lot of the above is all fun and games, searchers did use Bing to look for news and information about more serious stories throughout 2012, although only a few truly important topics broke into the top 10.

1. iPhone 5
2. 2012 Elections
3. 2012 Olympians
4. Hurricane Sandy
5. Honey Boo Boo
6. Gangnam Style dance
7. KONY 2012
8. Academy Awards
9. Kindle Fire HD
10. Facebook IPO

For the complete list of categories and notable search trends, see the Bing Trends blog post or check out the interactive slideshow and real-time search queries here.