Here's the thing some viewers seem to be missing about the video version of the Google Zeitgest 2010: Year in Review: It's the top global events based on search queries. So there's no point in complaining in the comments section on YouTube about Justin Bieber occupying several clips in the 2:54 minute piece.
Face it, haters: Justin Bieber is a fact of life. What's more, 2010 was his year.
As far as Google users were concerned, it was also the year of the World Cup, the Olympics, the Haiti earthquake, the Gulf oil spill and the Iceland ash cloud (from the challenging-to-spell volcano name Eyjafjallajökull). These too get screen time in this seamless video by Whirled — the creative collective behind "WikiWecap," a rapid-fire rundown of the juiciest details of the WikiLeaks diplomatic crisis.
Everything about this video is meant to manipulate your heart strings, and for most viewers it will achieve its goal as effectively as E.T. poking Elliott in the chest with a glowing extra-terrestrial finger. "Zeitgest 2010" is so well executed, it's easy to forget this is an advertisement.
Set to the song "Good Life" by OneRepublic, "Zeitgeist 2010" utilizes much of the growing roster of Internet tools to illustrate the year that was (as found on the Internet). I counted 13, including regular Search. That anachronism quickly gives way to the speedy (and still kind of creepy) Instant Search, the search that apparently reads your mind and finishes your typing.
Other new apps making an appearance include Priority Inbox, Voice (the VoIP service) YouTube Leanback, and oddly, Google's failed foray into social networking, Buzz.
Along with Fast Flip, Google's newspaper and magazine reader, are those handy tools we take for granted in the Google experience: News, Public Data, Images, Video, Maps and Earth.
It'll be interesting to see next year how the just-launched Google Books makes the mix — and whether Justin Bieber is still there, too.
Related:
Google top searches 2010: World Cup and iPad
Mostly everything from WikiLeaks in 3 minutes
No need to search for Helen A.S. Popkin. You can always find her on Facebook and/or follow her on Twitter.
