Current Google Insights trends: Elizabeth Edwards, QWOP and Chrome OS

Following her death last week, much admired health care campaigner Elizabeth Edwards was top of this week's Google Insights trends. The "internet's toughest game," QWOP, was also a popular search term, as was the new Chrome OS system.

The death of bestselling author, healthcare activist and attorney Elizabeth Edwards on Tuesday, December 7, sparked record levels of searches for her name over the last seven days. The estranged wife of US presidential candidate John Edwards was highly admired for her support of gay marriage, universal health care and her opposition to the war in Iraq. Throughout her long battle with breast cancer Elizabeth Edwards wrote several books describing her struggle and was an outspoken advocate for women's cancer charities.

The second most searched for term, "qwop," refers to what is alleged to be the "toughest game on the internet." Players of the Olympic running game user the keys Q,W,O and P to control their character's individual muscle groups and complete the race. The game is available to play for free at http://www.foddy.net/Athletics.html and was a popular search throughout South Asia, Oceania, parts of Northern Europe and the United States.  

The term Chrome OS relates to the forthcoming Linux based computer operating system designed by Google. The system, which has a minimalist style, will not be available to download but will be available on specific hardware devices. The first Chrome OS notebook, the Cr-48, boots up in only ten seconds and is expected to reach the shelves in the first half of 2011.

Millions of music fans around the world marked the 30th anniversary of John Lennon's death on December 8, and searches around the world for the singer pushed the term "John Lennon" into fourth position in this week's Google Insights trends.

Other popular searches this week include "Wowhead," the online database for the popular computer game World of Warcraft; "meteoroloji" and "hava durumu," the Turkish terms for meteorology and weather; French metro and train information site "ratp"; and international shipping company "dhl."

The search terms with the most significant growth worldwide in the last seven days as measured by Google Insights, recorded on December 13 at 9:30 AM GMT, are:

1.       elizabeth edwards (record)
2.       qwop (+2,850%)
3.       chrome os (+450%)
4.       john lennon (+350%)
5.       meteoroloji (+80%)
6.       ratp (+70%)
7.       wowhead (+60%)
8.       hava durumu (+50%)
9.       dhl (+40%)