TORONTO - Canadian web surfers who did their searching through Yahoo! in 2011 surprised observers by looking for more real news than celebrity gossip.
On Wednesday, Yahoo! Canada revealed its list of the most popular searches of the year, which was topped by queries about the volatile Canadian dollar. The loonie began the year around parity, surged beyond 106 cents US, and is now around 98 cents US.
Second on the list was Research in Motion (TSX:RIM), which has seen its shares plummet from around $60 in January to less than $20 in recent weeks. Also cracking the top 10 were searches about topical stories including the Canada Post strike, the royal wedding, and the census.
While there were some gossipy, celebrity terms on the list -- including "American Idol," Kim Kardashian, Pippa Middleton and Scarlett Johansson -- it's surprising how serious Canada's top searches were," said Heather Cabot, Yahoo!'s web life editor, who is based in New York.
"What stood out to me is the number of news stories on the Canadian list, typically in the U.S. we have a lot of celebrity stories, it's very celebrity oriented, (so Canada's list) is really unusual," Cabot said in an interview.
The U.S. list was topped by searches for the iPhone, followed by Casey Anthony, Kim Kardashian, Katy Perry, Jennifer Lopez, Lindsay Lohan, "American Idol," Jennifer Aniston, Japan earthquake and Osama bin Laden.
Cabot said she was quite surprised how high Pippa Middleton ranked in Canada. While she did receive a lot of attention around the time of her sister Kate's wedding, the sustained interest in the less-famous Middleton was unexpected.
"To make it into the top 10 searches you have to be a major star, this is not just a one-day spike -- like after the wedding, when all those pictures of her in her gown came out and there were all these knock-offs of the dress -- that one day would not (do it)," Cabot explained.
"If you are in the top 10 that means out of the billions and billions of searches that people are doing you're ranking at the very top, so that speaks a lot to her appeal."
Cabot was also interested to see that Canadian heart-throb Justin Bieber didn't rank in Canada or the U.S. Bieber also didn't crack the lists for the top 10 biggest celebrity searches or song lyric searches.
"He did make the top celebrity hairstyle search list," Cabot noted, "at No. 6 in the U.S."
She suspects Bieber may not turn up in the numbers because of his strong Twitter presence, with 15 million followers.
"He reaches his fans directly and so perhaps people feel like they have a relationship with him and they feel like they don't necessarily need to search for the latest details on him," Cabot guessed.
"But it's surprising he's not here, especially with the scandal" about allegations that he impregnated a fan, she said.
