Google Zeitgeist 2013

Google's Zeitgeist site redirects to Google Trends, which shows the year in review lists and some clever visualizations. "This year marks our most global Zeitgeist to date - with 1,000+ top 10 lists across categories like Trending People, Most-Searched Events and Top Trending Searches from 72 countries," mentions Google.

The search topics with the largest increase in search volume are: Nelson Mandela, Paul Walker, iPhone 5S, Cory Monteith, Harlem Shake, Boston Marathon, Royal Baby, Samsung Galaxy S4, PlayStation 4 and North Korea. Other popular gadgets: Xbox One, Nexus 5, HTC One, iPad Air, Blackberry 10 phones, Galaxy Note 3 and Nokia Lumia 1020. The most popular movie is Man of Steel and the most popular TV show is Under the Dome.

Google also shows a list of popular Google+ hashtags (#Boston, #BreakingBad, #TyphoonHaiyan) and YouTube videos (The Fox, Harlem Shake Army Edition, How Animals Eat Their Food).

You can select different countries and find the trending topics from other places. For example, the hottest technology topic in South Africa was BBM for Android, the hottest search in Spain was Outlook and the second most popular phone in India was Nokia Lumia 520.

There's also a globe that "visualizes the hottest daily Google searches in 2013 in over 150 cities. Explore what mattered to people by turning the globe, selecting a city, and sliding the date slider to any day of the year."

This video highlights some of the most important events from 2013 (some Google features too):