As the cherry blossoms bloom, and sweaters make way for t-shirts, nothing says Spring to us like the blooming number of searches for the prom. If searches for everything related to the prom continue growing at this rate, we expect to see them re-enter the Lycos 50 next week. Over the past 72 hours, searches for prom dresses exploded 276%, while searches for the ultimate prom-hairstyle grew faster than Jessica Simpson's extensions.

This year the ladies are more concerned about their up-do's than even their dresses, with searches for prom hairstyles being 10 times greater than searches for gowns.

For the past six years, we've tracked the most popular prom searches, but this year, there is definite shift in online prom interest. Back in 2000, 79% of prom-related brain cells were devoted solely to dresses and gowns. Dresses still get about 133 times more queries than the tuxedos, though. This follows the pattern established a few years ago where prom dresses find surges in popularity at the beginning of the year and then drop off in late April, but prom hairstyles stay hot until prom time in mid-May.

It's all about the Benjamin's as proms continue to be a billion dollar business. Proms are expected to bring in $2.7 billion in revenue for sellers of dresses, shoes, jewelry, flowers, beauty supplies and salon services. Various Prom magazines say its teen readers found the average price tag for a prom well over $1,000.

For guys it still is about the Tux although this year we found vintage tuxedos being very popular in our logs.

This year we also noticed that the ladies looked to the red carpet for prom inspiration. In fact following this year's Academy Awards, other than the title of the show, the most popular search was Oscar Dresses. Additionally we are seeing a corsage of other prom trends.

80's style prom dresses are still hot building off of last year's retro theme. In other news of what is old-is-hot-again, punk prom dresses saw a jump in web popularity. Additionally 'color is the new black,' with searches for dresses in hues of tangerine, turquoise and other bold colors painting our search logs. Meanwhile, the "Queen" of prom-related searches this year is Ghetto Prom Hairstyles. The 'Ghetto' style query permeated searches of everything related to the prom from dresses, hairstyles and themes. Message boards, viral photos, chat rooms are all discussing the phenomenon of style.

On another note, it turns out there are fairy godmothers. Searches for prom dress donation drives sparkled 117 percent since last week, proving that fairy tales exist. Around the country we learned of various communities holding prom dress drives. For many, the prom becomes a 'mini-wedding' and to ease some of the students' financial pressures, various groups collect 'gently used' gowns and donate them. Then girls (and boys) who glam up for the ball, can all afford to attend. Some communities chose to collect dreamy prom dresses to take to the storm-stricken areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina so they too can enjoy the magic of a prom.

Finally our favorite search of the season easily was - creative ways to ask a girl to prom.

The top 20 prom searches most requested by Lycos users for the week ending March 11, 2006:

1. Prom Hairstyles
2. Prom Dresses
3. Ghetto Prom Hairstyles
4. Hairstyles For Proms
5. Prom Up-dos
6. Prom
7. Punk Prom Dresses
8. Prom Hairstyle Pictures
9. Ghetto Prom Dresses
10. Poofy Prom Dresses

11. Elegant Prom Gowns
12. Prom Shoes
13. Tuxedo
14. 80s Style Prom Dresses
15. Modest Prom Dresses
16. Prom Dresses Under $200
17. Prom Gown Patterns
18. Prom Hair Do
19. Prom Themes
20. Prom Dresses Under $100

Dean Tsouvalas can be reached at dean.tsouvalas@lycos-inc.com