Rebecca Black, Google+ top Google's 2011 search list

Steve Jobs, iPad2 and iPhone5 show the strong excitement over instant tech news in 2011

I'm pretty sure that this Google's 2011 Zeitgeist shows us the power of instant reference checking since the Top 10 searches on the biggest Internet service reflect some scary results of what we really need to know about RIGHT NOW.

Topping the list was the controversial YouTube sensation Rebecca Black -- today is not Friday but we can only hope that no future Friday is ever commemorated with that dreadful song. In fact, Google says that 167 million views went to the official "Friday" YouTube posting -- for perspective, the official White House channel's post of the announcement of Osama Bin Laden's death received 6.2 million views (only 3% of the views that "Friday" got.) 

We all watched the video, sometimes more than once and we all wished that she had better parents that would have stopped this train wreck from getting online -- I'm excited when there is a Where are they Now special on her in 10 years.

Coming in second, and a hopeful sign for the Internet empire, was Google+. The social network that has been the butt of many jokes and criticism, launched in June and in its first three weeks it gained more than 10 million people -- making it the fastest growing social network ever. Despite this promising growth, the network still felt so empty compared to Twitter and Facebook, but last month when the site added brand pages and opened the network to anyone, people started seeing the power of the site and its great chat, sharing and video conference features.

While the site is still weathering through some of the turbulence in the US, Google+ looks like it has excited many people around the world -- ranking as a highly trafficked site in Nepal, Hong Kong, Bangladesh, Costa Rica and India, especially after the Dali Lama and Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan created accounts and hosted video chats.

The next two Google draws of 2011 reflect our more base interest in tabloid-level drama since the third search draw was the late Jackass star Ryan Dunn (who died in a car crash in June at the age of 34) and the closely-followed court case Floridian Casey Anthony. 

The fifth fastest growing search term was the highly anticipated and fastest-selling first-shooter game by EA, Battlefield3. The highly detailed game kept google searches busy the week of its release in late October and went on to sell 5 million copies in its first week.

Filling out the fastest growing searches of the year is is all that is Apple news. It was quite a momentus year for the Cupertino innovation company -- from the release of the iPad 2 to the record sales of the iPhone 4S and the death of its founder Steve Jobs.

With the buzz of the iPhone 5 coming in as the sixth fastest search (especailly the week of September 25, when many believed the phone would be released, but it was revealed that the phone coming out was the iPhone 4S), Steve Jobs was the ninth fastest growing search term and the iPad 2 closes out the list.