Instant messaging, banks top Chinese searches, Google says

January 3, 2008 —

Chinese banks and an instant messaging service topped
the list of fastest-rising search terms on Google's Chinese Web site during
2007, the company said Wednesday.

The first release of Google China's Zeitgeist (in Chinese), which lists the
fastest-rising search terms during 2007, was topped by QQ, an instant-messaging
service that is immensely popular among Chinese Internet users. Two banks --
China Merchants Bank and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China -- took the
second and third spots, followed by searches for "stocks" and "games."

China Construction Bank was in the sixth spot on the list, followed by Google
Earth, the Xunlei file-sharing service, antivirus vendor Kaspersky Lab, and
MSN.

Google Zeitgeist doesn't reflect the most-searched for terms on Google's Web
site. Instead, the list shows which search terms experienced the greatest jump
in popularity during the year. Viewed in that light, the popularity of banking
and financial terms on Google China's Zeitgeist list stand out against the list
compiled by Google for worldwide searches.

The worldwide Zeitgeist list was topped by Apple's iPhone, and is populated
by the names of popular Web sites, like Badoo (No. 2) and Facebook (No. 3).
None of the 10 terms on the worldwide Zeitgeit list were related to finance.
Conversely, the Chinese Zeitgeit list did not name any video-sharing sites,
while the worldwide list had two: Dailymotion (No. 4) and Google's own YouTube
(No. 6).

IDG News Service