14 DAY TRIAL // 2009 is coming to a close so what better time than to release all manner of interesting and exciting statistics and tops for all the family to enjoy. Symantec certainly thinks so and better yet, it's tying in some marketing material for good measure. The company has released the top 100 searches for 2009 by kids, as measured by its very own OnlineFamily.Norton app for concerned parents with busy lives. It's not the first one this year though, so it should be interesting to see how things evolved, if indeed they have.
Surprise, surprise, things haven't changed that much since summer, but a few of the top terms have switched positions. Coming in at number two and the biggest search term of 2009 as determined by Symantec is “YouTube,” Google's hugely popular video site, which is certainly replacing TV for the younger set. The second most searched term was “Google,” which it makes as little sense as it did the first time the results were released.
You'd expect some kids to search for Google, maybe even enough to make it to the top 100, but certainly not the second spot. Even if you account for searches in the browser's search boxes and the searches on other search engines which may be the homepage, Yahoo has this great habit of taking over people's homepages for example, it still couldn't possibly be enough to make it to number two.
Rounding up the top three is Facebook which, like YouTube, doesn't really need any explanation. Normally, you'd wonder why aren't these kids just typing in the address bar and going directly to these sites directly, but when Google is the second most searched item, not typing in URLs doesn't really make that much of an impression. Also in the top ten, MySpace, Michael Jackson, the ever-popular Fred and some expected, more adult-inclined terms. The study also breaks down the searches between boys and girls and also between different age groups.