Due to the events of September 11, this year's Web's Most Wanted looks much different than last year's edition. Three of the top ten topics are related to that fateful day. But the topic that stands at #1 for the year will come as a shock to nobody who reads our column regularly.

The #1 search on Lycos for 2001 was Dragonball, the Japanese cartoon show (and movies, videotapes, games, action figures, comic books, and assorted paraphenelia). While most adults have never heard of it, Dragonball continues to be obscenely popular on the Internet, among both teenagers -- it has a target audience older than competitor Pokemon -- and among college-age Japanese-animation buffs.

Dragonball finally hit #1 on the Lycos 50 in January and then held that spot for 25 out of the 52 weeks of the year. Only holidays, celebrity deaths, and the tragedy of September 11 could knock it from the top spot.

In 2000, Britney Spears narrowly defeated Dragonball; in 2001, Dragonball received almost twice as many searches as #2 Britney. That's because Britney searches fell in half while Dragonball's stayed constant. In fact, Dragonball searches actually went up in the week after September 11 -- one of the few non-war searches to go up that week.

While most pop culture items, such as Britney Spears and the NFL, took a short one-week dip in popularity after September 11, most topics quickly returned to their pre-September 11 levels. The change was not that people searched for World Trade Center instead of Britney - it is that they searched for both.

The biggest September 11-related topic for the year 2001 was Osama bin Laden (#5). He topped the Lycos 50 for 5 weeks after receiving very few searches prior to the attacks on America. In 2000 bin Laden received as many searches as the movie You've Got Mail and the nation of Burkina Faso. Every 7.5 hours since September 11, as many people have searched for bin Laden as searched for him in all of 2000.

Bin Laden wasn't the largest one-week search, however; that award goes to the 16th century French seer Nostradamus (#9). Thanks to a hoax prophecy attributed to him that predicted the Twin Towers disaster, Nostradamus received more searches in the week ending September 15 than any other subject in any one week since we first began the Lycos 50 two years ago. Nostradamus was misspelled in more than 100 ways and received twice as many searches as all the election queries combined in the week following the tumultuous 2000 election.

The other big story of 2001 was the replacement of Napster (#3) as the Internet's preeminent file sharing software by upstart Morpheus (#21). File sharing was a major story this year -- at one point, five different programs were on the Lycos 50 as companies competed to replace the lawsuit-plagued Napster as the taste of the month.

Morpheus didn't even make the Lycos 50 until June but it quickly ascended to the top ten and passed Napster in the last week of July. By the end of the year, Napster searches had dropped out of the Lycos 50 while Morpheus searches were firmly ensconced in the top ten. Nonetheless, Napster searches continued to be popular because the program has become a brand name for file sharing online, similar to how Xerox and Kleenex became part of the language instead of just "copy" and "tissue."

BIG BREAKOUTS OF 2001: The biggest growing topics in the top 200, other than those related to September 11 or a celebrity death: Morpheus, actor Josh Hartnett, actress Angelina Jolie, model Brooke Burke, the online "virtual pets" site Neopets, singers Shaggy and Dido, rapper Lil Bow Wow, video game console Xbox, the Ellis Island website.

MORE POPULAR THAN USUAL: Golf, plus IRS and taxes (thanks to interest in the tax rebate).

HOT IN 2000, NOT SO HOT IN 2001: Bride (and divorcee) Darva Conger, thong-lover Sisqo, ex-wrestling babes Chyna and Sable, singers Celine Dion and Shania Twain, the PT Cruiser, and scooters.

ONES TO WATCH 2002: Latina singer (and Pepsi spokeswoman) Shakira... summer movies Star Wars 2 and Spider-Man... rock band Papa Roach... actor Vin Diesel... actress Kirsten Dunst... figure skaters Michelle Kwan and Sarah Hughes, depending on who wins the gold in Salt Lake City.

By the way, every single item we chose as an Overall One to Watch last year ended up making the Lycos 50 at one point, including bands Tool and Destiny's Child, movies Tomb Raider and Lord of the Rings, actress Angelina Jolie, and the XFL.

People might forget this, but the XFL was insanely popular in its first couple weeks before people realized that the football quality was not high. It reached a peak of #7 on the Lycos 50 and received more searches in 2001 than Brad Pitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, or Jesus.

Thanks for joining us for this year's Web's Most Wanted awards. If you are looking for the latest weekly commentary, you can find it here. Otherwise, the Lycos 50 will return January 2.