Current Google Insights trends: Google Buzz, Alexander McQueen, School Closings

Searches for real-time communications service Google Buzz and the death of fashion icon Alexander McQueen have risen exponentially during the week of February 15

On February 9 Google announced it was integrating Google Buzz into its popular email client Gmail, giving consumers a new way to quickly and easily send photos, messages, videos, links and status updates to the people they communicate with most frequently.

Google Buzz is a direct competitor to the real-time microblogging site Twitter and dominating social network Facebook. Growing interest in the new service and concerns over initial security flaws (most of which have been resolved by Google) have pushed "Google Buzz" into the top position of Google's most searched for topics list.

The February 11 death of British fashion designer Alexander McQueen has devastated the fashion world and sent searches for his name skyrocketing. The iconic designer and 'enfant terrible' - whose designs both shocked and invigorated the fashion world - was found dead in his apartment after his apparent suicide.

Searches by American and Canadian residents have pushed "school closings" into the third spot on the Google Insights' list this week. Bad weather forced many schools in America and Canada to keep their doors shut during the week.

"Vancouver 2010" and "Olympics 2010" have jumped into the list of trending topics in positions 5 and 6 with the start of 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games.

The search terms with the most significant growth worldwide in the last seven days as measured by Google Insights, recorded on February 15 at 10:30 AM GMT are:

1. google buzz (Breakout)
2. alexander mcqueen (Breakout)
3. buzz (+700%)
4. school closings (+300%)
5. vancouver 2010 (+250%)
6. olympics 2010 (+200%)
7. meteo france (+140%)
8. météo (+90%)
9. meteo.it (+80%)
10. meteo (+80%)