THE COMMON thread linking Sarah Palin, Facebook, Bebo, Nicolas Sarkozy, Oasis, Dublin restaurants, cheap flights and song lyrics is not immediately apparent.
But they all topped one of the categories in Google's annual poll of the most popular search terms that users looked for using its search engine.
The 2008 Google Zeitgeist Ireland survey found the most popular search term in Ireland was Bebo, the social networking site, followed by Google's video-sharing service YouTube (which also cropped up at number seven as "you tube") and Microsoft's Hotmail e-mail service.
The fastest growing Irish search was for Facebook, followed by utube (sic), Google maps and Youtube. Polish social networking site Nasza Klasa ("our class") was the fifth-fastest rising search in Ireland, and seventh globally.
Sarah Palin topped the fastest growing list globally, but just scraped in at number 10 on the most popular politicians in Ireland.
The US presidential election and Lisbon Treaty had a strong influence on that list, with French president Nicolas Sarkozy topping the list, followed by George Bush. At number three, Mary Harney was the most searched for Irish elected representative. Barack Obama was number seven, while his opponent John McCain came in at eight.
Although hardly a well-regarded political poll, Opposition politicians may be concerned that none of them troubled the top 10, while Libertas founder Declan Ganley clocked in at five.
Google's data sheds some light on how the Irish are reacting to recession. Searches for new cars are down 75 per cent since the beginning of the year. Residents of Cork do the most searches for new cars, while Louth tops the chart for used cars. Searches for used cars from Northern Ireland were among the fastest-growing search terms in 2008.
Google said that despite the economic downturn, it continues to see a "high volume of searches for concert tickets and restaurants". The most popular terms related to dining out was "Dublin restaurants", "Cork restaurants" and "restaurants London".
Oasis, who play Slane Castle next year, were the most popular ticket-related search, followed by Munster rugby and Westlife.
In a statement accompanying the figures, Google points out that it was Donegal and not Cavan that had the highest volume of searches for "cheap". The most common terms to be searched for in relation to cheap were flights, hotels, holidays and laptops.
