Jicho Pevu’, IEBC ... 2013’s most Googled terms

By FRANKLINE SUNDAY

Kenya: Politics and celebrity news topped the list of agendas that Kenyans online gave priority to in the last 12 months.

This is according to Google Zeitgeist, the annual index of most important topics to Internet users globally going by search trends.

According to the 2013 Zeitgeist, Kenyans online lay most importance on the General Election, and the Westgate terrorism attack, issues that dominated headlines in the country for several months.

Devolution and the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) also topped the list of most searched items, an indication of the significance of the March 4 General Election.

“Many Kenyans searched on issues of policy, democracy, revolution, Obamacare, and biometric voter registration (BVR), in the politics category,” read a statement from Google.

In the health category, ovulation topped the list of most searched items followed by stress and nutrition with autism emerging as a new search trend. The issues of taxes also ranked top in the minds of Kenyans with the Kenya Revenue Authority’s Taxpayer’s month attracting intense interest online.

This is significant given the fact that the period that followed the 2013/2014 budget reading saw new tax policies like the value added tax (VAT) and capital gains tax make business headlines in the country.

The prominence of the 2013 General Election was evident with the IEBC election results announcement coming second in the same category.

“Trending searches have the highest amount of traffic over a sustained period and the top trending events for 2013 were the IEBC results and the Westgate attack,” read the Zeitgeist index in part.

Kenyans appetite for celebrity news and gossip was also reflected by the emergence of top musicians, local and international actors.

The late Paul Walker emerged in the top three in the list of Top Trending People only second to President Uhuru Kenyatta. Paul Walker was until his death in a car crash on November 30  was the star of the blockbuster franchise, the Fast and the Furious.

Musician Emmy Kosgei also generated a sizable amount of interest making it to the top ten searches in two categories; Top Searched People and the Top Trending Events where her wedding was tenth.

The late Ruhila Adatia, the Kiss TV presenter was the ninth most trending individual in the country after her tragic death while on duty during the Westgate terror attack.

This was also the year that saw Nairobi County leaders make it to the list of most searched items in Google owing to their public tiffs and often embarrassing scandals.

“Kidero slaps Shebesh” was ranked number eight on the list of Top Ten Trending Events. This was in reference to the September 6 altercation between the Nairobi Governor and County Woman Representative Rachel Shebesh.

Nairobi’s Senator, Mike Mbuvi popularly known as Sonko also made it to the list of Top Searched People ranking number six. The flamboyant senator who is not a stranger to controversy continued making news often for the wrong reasons in politics and social circles.

Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga beat President Uhuru Kenyatta to top the list of the most searched people by Kenyans online with radio host Caroline Mutoko coming in third.

KTN was also ranked highly among Kenyans online with two of its programmes emerging top ten on the list of the most searched TV shows.

The popular investigative news programme Jicho Pevu topped the list of local programmes that roused the interest of Kenyans online while Tujuane, the KTN blind-date reality show, emerged fifth.

Kenyans love for soap operas was also evident in the trending search for shows like Abyss of Passion, Amor Bravio, Punar Vivah and La Fuerza del Destino.

The Zeitgeist list however also indicated that Kenyans also use Google to learn how to perform various essential tasks top on the list being how to kiss followed closely by how to pray and how to abort.