Current Google Insights trends: lottery hopefuls over New Year's

(AFP PHOTO / Yoshikazu TSUNO)

Lottery hopes topped the list of Google trends again Tuesday, January 5.

The Turkish state lottery "Milli Piyango" was by far the highest trending topic, with a massive 2,200 percent search growth, followed by a new entry for the Dutch "Staatsloterij" with 1,800 percent growth. The Brazilian "mega sena" stayed static on the table in sixth place.

New Year-related searches are still popular, with the Polish "?yczenia noworoczne" in third place and "happy new year" in fifth place. "Blue moon," the astrononomical phenomenon of December 31 that witnessed a second full moon in a month, stays in fourth place. The Blue Moon eclipse was visible on New Year's Eve throughout Europe, Asia, Africa and parts of Alaska, where a dark shadow cast by the earth covered some eight percent of the moon.

"Pole emploi," the French employment service, and "way2sms," an Indian free text website, both rose one place to seventh and eighth position respectively.

Two media firms also appeared in the trending topics. "NHK," the Japanese state broadcaster aired its annual musical extravaganza "Kohaku Utagassen" (Red and White Singing Festival) on New Year's Eve, starring Britain's surprise talent show superstar Susan Boyle - or "SuBo" as she is known in Japan. The event, which pits the most popular musical artists of the year against each other in teams of red and white, is broadcast on television and radio across Japan and in Asia to a huge audience. "NHK" appeared in ninth place whilst Finnish newspaper "iltalehti" appeared in tenth place.

The search terms with the most significant growth worldwide in the last seven days as measured by Google Insights, recorded on January 5 at 9:30 AM GMT are:

1. milli piyango (+2,200%)
2. staatsloterij( +1,800%)
3. ?yczenia noworoczne (+900%)
4. blue moon (+900%)
5. happy new year( +450%)
6. mega sena (+250%)
7. pole emploi (+120%)
8. way2sms (+80%)
9. nhk (+60%)
10. iltalehti (+50%)