Bollywood stars and TV hits capture Zeitgeist attention

Google India today announced its annual Year End Zeitgeist, a look at 2013 through the collective eyes of the world on the web. Zeitgeist offers a unique perspective on the year's major events and hottest trends, based on Google searches conducted in India. In our annual Year-End Zeitgeist, we reflect on the people, places, and moments that captured the world's attention throughout the year.

This year, searches for Bollywood hits and the Indian Premier League topped the trending charts, showing that Indians' first love, as ever, is for stars, movies, and songs.

Bollywood comedy Chennai Express topped the Zeitgeist chart this year, as the movie gained wide popularity nationwide. This year, searches for the Indian Premier League broke records for the amount of online searches for latest scores and results. Also topping the top trending searches were blockbusters Aashiqui 2, Krrish 3, and Ram Leela. These results diverged from last year's Zeitgeist, that reflected an emphasis on utilitarian searches related to seeking information for personal needs such as shopping and booking tickets.

Local entertainment was also popularly searched on mobile this year. Top 3 searches on mobile were Restaurants, Bars and Movies followed by Coffee, Cricket score and fast food.

This year saw a remarkable uptick of searches for e-commerce sites, with Flipkart and Olx.com topping the chart for most searched online shopping sites. Gaming emerged as a popular category for the first time, as a critical mass of people searched for games online.

Rajan Anandan, VP and Managing Director, Sales and Operations, Google India, said, "From a search trends perspective, 2013 was clearly the year of entertainment. Shah Rukh's Lungi Dance from Chennai Express, the Bollywood romantic drama Aashiqui 2, national heart-throbs Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif, Telugu actor Kajal and her counterpart, the young rebel star Prabhas and singer Honey Singh ruled 2013 and drove millions of Indians to the web. Online shopping, banking, and e-commerce also continued their upward trend-a clear testimony to Indians embracing online transactions."

Zeitgeist also reflected the year's top news moments that captured India's attention. The announcement of Narendra Modi as the BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate was among the top searched online news in India this year, along with Karnataka's elections results, in addition to the success of Indian athletes like Rahul Dravid and Saina Nehwal.