Hollywood and Media Flameouts Top Google's 2017 Searches

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Google gave everyone a peek behind the curtain on Wednesday, sharing its top searches of 2017 — and its most Google’d people list is a who’s who of embattled Hollywood and media figures.

Matt Lauer, recently ousted from the “Today” show after several accusations of sexual misconduct, topped the charts as the internet behemoth’s most searched person of 2017. Not far behind him, coming in at No. 4 and 5 across the globe, were Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey, respectively.

But it wasn’t all bad. Meghan Markle, the Los Angeles-born soon-to-be-princess, held down the second slot for both most searched person and actor in the world. And staying on Hollywood for a moment, “Stranger Things” was the most searched show of the year, edging out “13 Reasons Why,” “Big Brother Brasil” (I guess it’s still big in South America) and “Game of Thrones.”

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If I gave you a single guess for several of the top categories, you could probably nail them. Song: “Despacito.” Singer: Ariana Grande. Meme: “Cash me outside” girl. Movies might have been a bit of an upset, however, with “It” taking the top search from heavy favorite “Wonder Woman.”

The overall Google search champ? Hurricane Irma, followed by iPhone 8 and iPhone X. And it wouldn’t be a day on the internet without someone talking about bitcoin, with the cryptocurrency showing up as the second most searched news item of the year (behind Irma). It was also the third most “how to… ” search, with Googlers trying to figure out “how to buy bitcoin.”

Check out the full results here.

6 Tech Giants Shaking Up News, From Jeff Bezos to Laurene Powell Jobs (Photos)

Tech leaders are increasingly intertwined with the news business. While some want to support old properties, one set out to destroy a new one. Here they are.
Jeff Bezos – Washington Post

The Amazon founder purchased the Washington Post in 2013 for $250 million in cash. President Trump has called the paper the “Amazon Washington Post.”

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Chris Hughes - The New Republic

The Facebook co-founder purchased The New Republic in 2012, becoming executive chairman and publisher. However, he sold the venerable political magazine to Win McCormack in 2016, saying he "underestimated the difficulty of transitioning an old and traditional institution into a digital media company in today’s quickly evolving climate."

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Pierre Omidyar - The Intercept

The eBay founder is a well-known philanthropist who created First Look Media, a journalism venture behind The Intercept. Inspired by Edward Snowden's leaks. Omidyar teamed up with journalists Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras to launch the website “dedicated to the kind of reporting those disclosures required: fearless, adversarial journalism.”

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Peter Thiel

The PayPal co-founder doesn’t own a news organization, but he makes this list because he essentially ended one -- Gawker -- proving once again the power of an angry billionaire. Thiel secretly bankrolled Hulk Hogan’s sex-tape lawsuit against Gawker Media because he was upset that the website once outed him as gay. Hogan won the defamation lawsuit against the site that sent its parent company into bankruptcy, and Gawker.com is no longer operating.

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Mark Zuckerberg – Facebook

OK, so Facebook isn’t technically a news organization… yet. However, the company is preparing to launch its much-anticipated lineup of original content later this summer, and there are also signs that it's on the verge of becoming an even bigger media platform.

Campbell Brown, Head of News Partnerships at Facebook, confirmed last week it’s developing a subscription service for publishers willing to post articles directly to Facebook Instant Articles, rather than their native websites.

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Tech is increasingly intertwined with news, for better or worse

Tech leaders are increasingly intertwined with the news business. While some want to support old properties, one set out to destroy a new one. Here they are.

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