No. 8: Jennifer Aniston
America’s sweetheart Jennifer Aniston is enjoying her little cloud of search popularity floating at the top. We love everything about her. We want to know about her hair, her clothes, her apartment, her love life, her plans — everything. To us, she is anything but uninteresting, and we’ll jump to…
No. 7: American Idol
When Simon Cowell left “American Idol” in 2010 — after what was widely considered to be the show’s worst season ever, generating relatively low record sales for winner Lee DeWyze and runner-up Crystal Bowersox — many punters assumed the show was doomed. Cowell himself may have counted on the show…
No. 6: Lindsay Lohan
Hollywood has too many stories of promising child actors who sank into a haze of addiction and anonymity. Lindsay Lohan hasn’t had the luxury of neglect. An inexhaustible celebrity-news cycle and her own self-promotion have kept her in the public eye. While attention hasn’t lessened, patience may have: Last year,…
No. 4: Katy Perry
From tongue-in-cheek singer/songwriter to full-fledged superstar, Katy Perry has blasted into the pop stratosphere in 2011 — and has the stats (and hair) to prove it. Smashing records While she didn’t win any Grammys, despite having been nominated for the past three years, Perry climbed ahead of some of the…
No. 5: Jennifer Lopez
Downsizing for “American Idol,” even for a judicial chair, was a risk. The pop-culture phenomenon, stale and at a crossroads, was increasingly irrelevant. Past wins didn’t seem to translate into long-term success. The best days, people thought, were in the past. Wait, the Fox reality singing competition or Jennifer Lopez?…
No. 3: Kim Kardashian
Some countries have royal weddings. Americans deal in reality. The one-woman empire called Kim Kardashian married New Jersey Nets power forward Kris Humphries, and a few searches referred to the collective union as “Kris Hump.” A celebrity’s romantic past is never forgotten, which is why some people checked out the…
No. 2: Casey Anthony
On July 15, 2008, Cindy Anthony reported her granddaughter, 2-year-old Caylee, missing. The toddler lived with her grandparents and her mom, Cindy’s wild-child 22-year-old daughter, Casey, in an unassuming four-bedroom home in Orlando, Florida. Cindy told police that she hadn’t seen her granddaughter in a month and that Casey hadn’t…
No. 1: iPhone
No other product or brand has developed a greater cult following than the iPhone. In 2011, Apple made joining that cult a lot easier. After four years, the obsession has become the year’s most searched term on Yahoo!. Apple lowered prices, signed up more carriers, and made the iPhone a…
Top 10 Searches
The top search term of 2011 wasn’t a person or a news event. It was a technological marvel. Top 10 Searches iPhone Casey Anthony Kim Kardashian Katy Perry Jennifer Lopez Lindsay Lohan “American Idol” Jennifer Aniston Japan Earthquake Osama bin Laden In the 11 years that Yahoo! has compiled its…
Solar Storms Forecast
NASA via Getty Images The forecasts for 2012 are coming out, and among the predictions: the end of the world. The truth? The world’s not scheduled to end in 2012, at least not according to the Maya. That said, things could start to seem downright apocalyptic if a solar flare…