Wild New Year's week on the Lycos 50! Y2K, lukewarm for so long, jumps to #2 on the final week of the year. (Did panic set in at last?) And that's not all: the week's list contains five different terms related to the new year. They include:
#2: Y2K (technical worries)
#5: The New Year (parties, resolutions, greetings)
#6: Time (time zones, atomic clocks, Greenwich)
#9: The Millennium (many spellings)
#42: Auld Lang Syne (yep, the song)
Lump them together and they'd easily beat Pokemon for #1 on the Lycos 50 -- but we find them more revealing individually. Clearly people looked to the Web to help them count down the hours until 2000 and to track the new year around the globe. (In case you're wondering about Time, we didn't count searches for the magazine.)
And honestly, who knew so many people would search for Auld Lang Syne? It's a grand old song, but not that grand. About 10% of those searches were for "Auld Lang Syne lyrics." About 2% spelled it "Old Lang Syne."
Other headlines from this week's list:
SWEEPSTAKES CRAZY: Users are loco for Publishers Clearing House (#4). The venerable direct mail marketer has made a successful move to the web; the vast majority of queries are for "pch.com" and variations. That $21 million grand prize seems to be doing the job.
GAME CRAZY: If people weren't looking for Y2K or PCH, they were looking for games. Four new games jumped into the Lycos 50 this week: Tomb Raider (#18), Donkey Kong 64 (#38), Resident Evil (#39), and Gran Turismo (#48). (Not to mention game platform Nintendo (#32).) Our guess: lots of kids with new Christmas games and no school to interrupt the action. All four titles released new versions recently, though Lara Croft in Tomb Raider IV seems to be the hottest item.
YOU SAY YOU WANT A RESOLUTION: Dieting (#37) wins the title of #1 New Years resolution. Queries for diet, diets and dieting doubled in the last week. (And we didn't even include all those grapefruit and protein diets in the count).
MAXIM EFFECT: The 'Maxim effect' is back in action. Actress Shannon Elizabeth is on the cover of the latest Maxim magazine, and she jumps to #31 on this week's Lycos 50. (Maxim covers guarantee maximum exposure, if you catch our drift.) Melissa Joan Hart and Jennifer Love Hewitt were earlier beneficiaries of the Maxim effect.
OLD-TIMERS FALL: Pro wrassler Sable and cartoon family The Simpsons both disappeared this week after 19 and 18 weeks on our charts, respectively.
NEW THIS WEEK: The New Year, time, the millennium, Tomb Raider, Shannon Elizabeth, Nintendo, diets, Donkey Kong 64, Resident Evil, Auld Lang Syne, Gran Turismo, Christina Aguilera.
DROPOUTS: Christmas (#24) stayed in the top 50, but other holiday terms disappeared: Santa Claus, winter solstice, toys, Barbie, Martha Stewart, and (sadly) elf bowling. Other dropouts: game platform Dreamcast, actresses Carmen Electra and Alyssa Milano, band Limp Bizkit, marijuana, Sable and The Simpsons.
BIGGEST RISE: Publishers Clearing House up 20 spots to #4; the Internal Revenue Service up 15 spots to #34.
BIGGEST DROP: Christmas down 23 spots to #24; Marylin Star and NASA both down 21 places.
AND FINALLY: Any press is good press, as the old saying goes, and Marylin Star is living proof. The adult actress jumped onto the Lycos 50 last week after she got caught amidst an insider trading scandal. That story is old news now, but Ms. Star remains in the Lycos 50 for the second week in a row. Meanwhile actress Jennifer Lopez got hauled in by the cops after a nightclub shooting, and the news kept her at #11 for the second straight week.
