During the past two years as a spokesperson for Yahoo! Buzz, I’ve gotten up before dawn many mornings to speak with live radio hosts about Yahoo!’s weekly top searches. The keywords are always interesting so I never worry about having nothing to say. It’s fascinating to see each week’s Search data because it’s like peeking into the minds of everyone on the planet and seeing what they’re really thinking about. Sure, they’re definitely celebrity heavy, but people also do countless searches (such as for Middle East map or U.S. midterm elections) to better understand important news stories.

Tonight we launched Yahoo!’s Top Searches 2006. It gives you the pulse of the Web over the past year as told through the billions of searches conducted each month by millions of people around the globe. Check it out.

I don’t want to spoil anything for you by announcing that Britney Spears is the top-searched person as well as the top search overall of 2006. It’s true. Believe it or not, Britney has been the top-searched person five out of the past six years.

Radio hosts always ask me: “Why all the searches for Britney when she hasn’t even released an album this year?” Yahoo! searches reveal that celebrities don’t really have to produce hit records or movies to stay in the public eye, because people are fascinated with their private lives — especially when they’re full of—how-shall-we-say-it—“drama.” Britney’s second baby (Jayden James), her split from K-Fed, and (especially) her well-photographed stint of late-night partying with Paris Hilton drove her to the top of searchers’ minds. Interesting fact: searches for Britney Spears and Paris Hilton received 11 times as many searches than Britney Spears and Kevin Federline ever did. Just for the record, Britney was the top search of 2006 even before her recent exposure sans underpants, but the last two weeks have only enforced her stature.

A new category addition this year is Top Celebrity Baby. Suri Cruise reigned for “Suri Cruise sightings” as folks sought proof of the newborn’s existence. Her debut in “Vanity Fair” at four months helped push Suri past Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt and Sean Preston Federline for top baby honors.

Thankfully, celebrities aren’t the only thing on people’s minds. Studies often show that Americans have a hard time locating other countries on a map. It’s heartening to see our users striving to better understand important news such as the Iraqi conflict and the Israel Lebanon conflict and seeking Middle East maps. Other big news searches included the false confession in the JonBenet Ramsey case and the Danish cartoon protest. But it was the shocking death of Australian naturalist Steve Irwin that became the top news search of the year as people rushed to understand the circumstances of his death, what a stingray looks like, and how tribute would be paid to the international star.

As a devoted blog reader and longtime blogger myself for the past seven years at poprocks.com, I took special note of the top blogs of 2006, which focus on either entertainment or politics. Entertainment blogs PerezHilton, The Superficial, and Pink is the New Blog enjoy the very top spots, followed by political blogs Huffington Post, Daily Kos, and Little Green Footballs.

I can’t wait to see what you’re all looking up in 2007.

Jess Barron
Managing Editor, Yahoo! Broadband