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This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.

News

What Angelenos Googled in 2012

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The omniscient Google might know more about us than we're comfortable with, but at the same time, we're always curious to see what searches reveals about our collective psyche.

The company created its 2012 Zeitgeist site and a video that replays some of the highlights from our search data over the past year.

The Zeitgeist 2012 page has the most-searched terms in many categories, like events, films and people, but we asked Google if they could break down the data geographically for us. (There is a cities tab but it only includes data about the top-searched restaurants on Zagat.) Here they are:

1. Whitney Houston
2. Lakers
3. Dodgers
4. Olympics 2012
5. UCLA
6. SigAlert LA
7. LADWP
8. Clippers
9. LA Unified School District
10. Batman

For comparison's sake, you can check out the biggest search terms in New York City, and see that they also wanted information about their sports teams and utility company. (Of course, Angelenos looked up SigAlert, while New Yorkers looked up their transit system.)

1. Hurricane Sandy
2. MTA
3. NY Knicks
4. NY Giants
5. StreetEasy NYC
6. SoulCycle NYC
7. NY Times
8. LIPA
9. NY Daily News
10. Con Edison

For a blast from the past, check out some of the hot search terms from 2006.

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