"Well I think that having Osama bin Laden as the most popular man on a list that primarily consists of rappers and athletes is sort of interesting. It demonstrates how much he has become the embodiment of evil in the United States since September 11th. I mean September 11th really had a huge impact on Internet searches because we have a number of items on the top fifty for the year that would have never have been there prior to September 11th."
Lycos 50 author Aaron Schatz. Bin Laden is number five. Believe it or not...something you may have never heard of... the Japanese cartoon show Dragonball... popular with teenagers... is number one...
"And it is the most searched item on the Internet and it has been pretty much all year. It topped 25 out of 52 weeks in 2001 and ended up with twice as many searches as anything else on our list."
Knocking off Britney... who was number one last year. And looking ahead to next year... Schatz predicts some new faces...
"Actress Kirsten Dunst, who is in Spiderman and also figure skaters Michelle Kwan and Sara Hughes.
Lycos knows from past performance lots of searches are generated by the Olympics. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.