Yahoo!’s Year in Review Profiles a Year of Discovery and Disaster

Today Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) announced its 2010 Year in Review (http://yearinreview.yahoo.com), the much-anticipated annual Yahoo! look back that identifies the top trends of the year from billions of consumer searches, and the top stories and topics of the year from the Yahoo! network. The Year in Review is a distinct way to look at people’s interests and a society in motion. Yahoo! is at the center of people’s online lives, and people consistently rely on the Internet giant to find, discover, and connect to the people and things that matter most to them. Given Yahoo!’s reach on the Web, the aggregated visitor activity is a barometer for worldwide consumer interest.

This year, online activity on Yahoo! was dominated by the public’s transfixion with the BP oil spill, pop culture’s leading ladies, gadgets starting with "I,” and a newfound fascination with soccer. The BP oil spill was the top Yahoo! search for 2010. People turned to the Web to watch the live feed of the oil leak, search for answers to the spill’s impact, and get details. On a lighter note, soccer turned out to be a burning topic for fans and newbies alike. Search trends showed excitement around the players and teams throughout the World Cup tournament. Many consumers asked questions about the rules of soccer, and some even logged on to identify the annoying sounds coming through their televisions (think vuvuzela horns).

The Year in Review Top 10 lists also record the year’s pop culture trends and guilty pleasures. What’s notable is who has dropped in the mix: Music artist Britney Spears dominated the Year in Review Top 10 lists in the past decade but dropped from her No. 1 spot to No. 5 in 2009, and this year she came in at No. 10. Plenty of rising starlets have swarmed in to take her place, including teen sensation Miley Cyrus, the unpredictable music artist Lady Gaga, and reality TV star and mogul Kim Kardashian.

"In 2010 consumers watched the BP disaster unfold like a slow-motion horror film and discovered a love for the ‘other’ football,” explains Vera Chan, senior editor and Web trend analyst for Yahoo!. "There was no stopping the meteoric rise of artists like Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber. And a favored Disney star, Miley Cyrus, made the up-and-down transition to adulthood, while Britney Spears seemed to get her life back on track and dropped on the Top 10 list again this year.”

In 2010, consumers wanted information on the go and searched on their mobile phones. They used their mobile devices to connect with the latest NFL scores and fantasy teams, to learn the latest on the outrageous Lady Gaga, to follow the marital difficulties of Sandra Bullock, and even to keep up with "American Idol.”

In the U.S., the top searches among Hispanics on Yahoo! en Español covered topics like "Derrame de petróleo” (BP’s oil spill), "ley de Arizona” (Arizona’s immigration law), and actress Sandra Bullock, for her movie awards as well her divorce from reality TV star Jesse James. People were also hungry for "copa mundial” (World Cup), in particular "Iker Casillas y Sara Carbonero” (Spain’s goalkeeper and his girlfriend / TV reporter), Pulpo Paul (octopus oracle), and Larissa Riquelme (Paraguay model and big fan). Find the top Spanish-language searches at espanol.resumen2010.yahoo.com.

A sputtering economy had people stuck on many fronts, finding a job and making mortgage payments among them. Midterm elections, product recalls, and high-profile job exits also preoccupied online attention in 2010.

"This was a year of starts, stops, and stalls,” Chan says. "We had technological innovations, economic reforms, political standoffs, and financial struggles.” Consumers turned to Yahoo! to search for all things related to finance.

A consistent highlight in 2010, the sports world started the year off right with the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. On American soil, Cinderella upsets meant all bets were off, from college bowls to the Super Bowl, and people searched for all the details. The high point in sports was the World Cup, when soccer fans — seasoned or fledgling — halted productivity for 30 days in summer to witness an exciting clash of nations.

Every Friday and Saturday night, teenagers primp for dates, and many search on Yahoo! for "how to tie a tie.” This discovery was the inspiration for the 2010 Top Questions list on Yahoo!. And for those of you who don’t know how to boil an egg, it appears that you are turning to Yahoo! to find out.

The Top Obsessions list, new to the Yahoo! Year in Review, highlights the topics that people couldn’t get enough of this year. The iPhone 4 was officially announced in June, but searches started much earlier and continued all year. And after years of speculation about Apple’s tablet device, the "magical and revolutionary” iPad was introduced to the world. Biting at the heels of these gadgets was an obsession with (or a fear of) bedbugs, which caused searchers to seek "what do bedbugs look like” and "how to prevent bedbugs.”

Recipes and health are staples when it comes to online searches. In 2010, many consumers sought recipes for their favorite go-to protein, chicken. Some surprises on the list included Halloween recipes and summer salads. Pregnancy and diabetes were primary health topics investigated this year.

For more about the Yahoo! 2010 Year in Review and other top searches, go to http://yearinreview.yahoo.com or search for "2010 Year in Review" on Yahoo.com.

About the Yahoo! Year in Review Methodology

To develop the Yahoo! Year in Review, our editors analyze Yahoo! Search queries based on a number of factors, including absolute volume and the growth from previous periods, to see which themes and trends bubble to the surface. Individuals and their Search queries always remain anonymous.

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) is an innovative technology company that operates the largest digital media, content, and communications business in the world. Yahoo! keeps more than half a billion consumers worldwide connected to what matters to them most, and delivers powerful audience solutions to advertisers through its unique combination of Science + Art + Scale. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit the pressroom or the company’s blog, Yodel Anecdotal. Yahoo! is the trademark and/or registered trademark of Yahoo! Inc.

All other names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

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