It’s that time when all the companies that collect your data start parceling it out to tell you what the year’s really been like – we’ve already had offerings from Facebook and Twitter. What makes Google’s version – Zeitgeist – a little different is that they offer pretty particular data about South African search trends.

And I mean credit to Google for the sort of data they’re putting out – they’ve got month-by-month lists for the fastest rising searches, fastest rising people, and the most frequently searched-for lyrics, among others.

The fastest-rising searches in the country are pretty indicative – there’s a smattering of stuff that has local priority, but we’re mostly seeing searches for international matters:

1. Whatsapp
2. Rugby World Cup
3. Royal Wedding
4. Facebook
5. Amy Winehouse
6. Adele
7. Gaddafi
8. Iphone 5
9. Velvet Sky
10. Steve Jobs

Where we see more local stuff coming up, though, is in the ‘What Is…?‘ listing, which tracks the most frequently occurring ‘what is [x]’ queries:

1. What Is Facebook
2. What Is Love
3. What Is Life
4. What Is Hiv
5. What Is Research
6. What Is Technology
7. What Is Energy
8. What Is Aids
9. What Is Cancer
10. What Is Ubuntu

I mean on the one hand it’s a little disconcerting that some of these things are things that people don’t know about, but on the other it’s sort of neat that Google offered a platform by which folk could find out.

It pleases me, by the way, to inform you that Rebecca Black didn’t make any of our lists at all.

Take a look at the rest of the data over at Google Zeitgeist.

[Source: Google Zeitgeist]