The king is dead. Pokemon has finally been booted from the #1 spot on the Lycos 50.
Pokemon sat at #1 for 30 straight weeks, ever since the very first week of the year 2000. (Christmas was #1 for four weeks in December '99.) During those 30 weeks the Japanese craze fought off challenges by formidable competitors like Valentine's Day, Jennifer Lopez's Grammy Awards dress, and even a lunar eclipse -- not to mention the indefatigable Britney Spears.
But even Pokemon couldn't withstand this week's flood of searches for Napster, the controversial music system. News that Napster had been ordered to shut down sent surfers scrambling for Napster news and last-minute downloads.
It also sent them in search of alternative music systems, including Gnutella (#7) and Freenet (#44).
30 weeks is a long time for anything to remain at the top of the public consciousness, so we tip our cap to Pokemon and its creators. But honestly, thank heavens they're finally fading.
Other key points from this week's Lycos 50:
TV's Big Brother, that voyeur's delight, remains powerfully popular with web users, ending up at #2 on this week's list. The show's competition in the "reality show" sweepstakes, Survivor, drops 3 spaces but remains in the top 10.
Meanwhile Britney Spears (#3) got a boost from continuing rumors that she would marry 'N Sync heartthrob Justin Timberlake. (Not true, Spears's handlers report.)
The crash of the Air France Concorde jet in Paris was a very hot topic online, with queries putting it at #8. About 6% of all Concorde searches included the word "video" -- apparently seeking the dramatic footage of the plane with engines on fire. Sad but true: we also got several hundred searches for "Concorde jokes."
Stephen King scored with his experimental pay-per-view online book, titled The Plant. Searchers moved him up to #36, one spot above Napster bane Metallica.
SHORT SUBJECTS: Football is heating way up, with two items in this week's top 50: football (#23) and the NFL (#41). Training camp fans and fantasy football nuts seem to be leading the charge... Speaking of celebrity marriages, the Jennifer Aniston/Brad Pitt affair happened too late to figure in this week's search results... Those trailers for Coyote Ugly are working: the babes-as-bartenders flick was second only to the X-Men (#9) among summer movies -- and Coyote Ugly hasn't even been released yet.
NEW THIS WEEK: Gnutella, the Concorde, transportation fad scooters, Stephen King, the NFL, FreeNet, chat queen Oprah Winfrey.
DROPOUTS: Golf's British Open, bicycling's Tour de France, rock band Korn, toy fad Beanie Babies, food fad the Atkins Diet, pop crooner Mariah Carey, radio yakker Howard Stern.
BIGGEST RISE: Napster, up 11 to #1.
BIGGEST DROP: Scholarships, down 13 to #46.
AND FINALLY: New GOP vice presidential candidate Dick Cheney didn't get enough searches to make the Lycos 50, but he did get enough to tie him in popularity with the TV soap opera Days of Our Lives.
