Washington: The past year was a big one for Donald Trump, but also for Pokemon Go. According to Google’s global trends report released on Wednesday, the augmented reality game from Nintendo was the most-searched item online in 2016.
Trump was number three among the most-searched topics for the year, behind the iPhone 7 and ahead of rock icon Prince, who died in April. But Trump topped the list of the most-searched people for the year, ahead of his campaign rival Hillary Clinton, Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, Trump’s wife Melania and gold medal gymnast Simone Biles, Google said.
Google publishes its global list each year along with trends from different countries, offering insights into the interests of internet users around the globe. The top news item searched on Google was the US election, followed by the Olympic Games in Rio, Brexit, the deadly nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida and the Zika virus.
Among celebrities who died in 2016, the most searched-for was Prince, followed by David Bowie, slain US singer Christina Grimmie, British actor Alan Rickman and boxing legend Muhammad Ali. In consumer technology, the iPhone 7 topped the search list, while number two was Freedom 251 — the smartphone offered for sale in India for '251, or less than $4.
In global sports events, internet users searched most for the Olympics, followed by the baseball World Series, the Tour de France, Wimbledon and the Australian Open tennis tournament. The most searched-for movies were Deadpool, Suicide Squad, The Revenant, Captain America: Civil War and Batman v Superman, according to Google. Among US users, the most-searched item was the Powerball lottery, which delivered a record $1.6 billion jackpot.
