Nick Berg is the new number one search term on the Lycos Search engine over the past 24 hours. The top 10 search requests Web users are specifically searching for regarding Nick Berg are:

1. Nick Berg video
2. Nick Berg Beheading
3. Nick Berg and Iraq
4. Nick Berg Execution
5. Nick Berg Beheading Video
6. Nick Berg Killing
7. Nick Berg murder
8. Nick Berg assassination
9. Nick Berg decapitation video
10. Execution of Nick Berg.

The video showing the beheading of U.S. captive Nick Berg, combined with the multitude of search activity for the War in Iraq and searches for the Iraqi prisoners of war, is generating 12 times more searches than the #2 search term, Paris Hilton.

At the onset of the Iraq War, when Al-Jazeera chose to run video of the American POWs, Al-Jazeera was the number one search term with Web users. Over the past 24 hours, the video of U.S. captive Nick Berg is showing a similar trend to the Al Jazeera searches, completely surpassing Internet search terms, Paris Hilton, Clay Aiken and Britney Spears.

It's amazing what a day will bring. On Tuesday we wrote about the fact that the Iraq War was the number one search term on Lycos, for the first time ever. Web users are searching for Iraqi prisoner of war photos, generating twice as much search activity surrounding Iraq than during the onset of the war in March 2003.

As evident when terrorists released a video of kidnapped reporter Daniel Pearl on the Internet, newsworthy video and photos drive search activity, especially when North American television media outlets choose not to air such videos and photos.