Jokowi, Psy win Indonesian Internet fame: Google

 

Psy

Jakarta Governor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, K-Pop hit “Gangnam Style” video by Psy and Apple’s iPhone 5 attained Internet glory by becoming the most searched queries of 2012 on Google and Yahoo!, illustrating the strong Indonesian palate for all things sensational and commercial.

Yahoo! Indonesia and the Indonesian list on 2012 Google Zeitgeist ― the search engine’s annual list of top searches ― have unanimously included Jokowi on the list of top queries this year.

All keywords related to the newly installed governor, including Pilgub DKI (Jakarta gubernatorial elections) and Esemka, a local brand of a crafted car the governor fully endorsed, were top queries as well.

Sensational State-Owned Enterprises Minister Dahlan Iskan was another highly searched for name, Yahoo! Indonesia and Google Indonesia reported.

The name of former beauty queen-turned-politician-turned bribery suspect Angelina “Angie” Sondakh was bestowed a thorny crown by entering the list of top searches in the corruption news category compiled by Yahoo! Indonesia.

All keywords related to her case, including Hambalang, the name of the project she was involved in, and Novel Baswedan, an Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) investigator digging into Angelina’s involvement, were top search words in the corruption news category as well.

On a lighter note, K-Pop star Park Jae-sung, or Psy, became a popular search query for both Google and Yahoo!. The keywords “Gangnam style”, the title of Psy’s viral video, scored high in terms of search as well.

However, a majority of trending musicians this year, based on Google Zeitgeist, were homegrown musicians, including pop band Noah and girl band Cherry Belle.

Besides the most searched names of people and bands, Google has also listed the most searched device brands of the year. Apple’s latest toy, the iPhone 5, made it onto this list as well as Yahoo!’s list of the most searched keyword in the technology department.

Lion Air and Tokobagus.com made first and second place, respectively, for the most searched brands on Google.

Rudy Ramawy, country head of Google Indonesia, said that the Zeitgeist showed “the strong and continuous growth of Internet use within Indonesia”, considering the heavy number of local search terms entering the list.

He added that the list reflected the way people had turned to search engines to scour the latest local news and information, in addition to learning more about people and products.

“The year-end Zeitgeist is a cultural barometer that gives us a real snapshot of the big events, memorable moments and growing trends in Indonesia for 2012,” he said.

Nanda Ivens, a digital marketing practitioner, said the queries on the search engine depicted the “increased maturity” of Indonesian Internet users, who now turned to search engines as their first point of reference.

He added that search engine users had begun to utilise search engines discerningly. People used Google, he said, to search for the objects they were interested in, as well as destinations they wished to head to.

Meanwhile, people turned to Yahoo! Indonesia to find information on entertainment, given that the search engine runs the news aggregating site Yahoo! Indonesia OMG!.

"People look up entertainment news on Yahoo! OMG! and from there, start to find more information on what they have read,” he said.

He added that the inclination for people to read entertaining news on the Internet was a habit Indonesians had in common with the rest of the world.

"We love sensational things,” he said.

Top searches worldwide, based on Google Zeitgeist, include boy band One Direction, basketball athlete Jeremy Lin and, once again, the “Gangnam Style” video.

In addition to top search lists by Google and Yahoo!, professional networking website LinkedIn announced the top 10 buzzwords Indonesians used in their accounts.

The words “multinational”, “motivated” and “creative” made it onto the list, in addition to “responsible” and “dynamic”.

The top buzzwords matched global trends, in which “creative” became the most used word worldwide, coming first in countries such as the US, Australia and Singapore.