“The Dutch don’t know how to Google,” Bright.nl thinks (Dutch). Google has recently published its Zeitgeist 2008, a list of the things people have been googling for this year. The Dutch top 5:
- hyves
- youtube
- marktplaats
- weer
(Emphasis mine. Marktplaats is the Dutch eBay, “weer” means weather.)
Yes, that’s right, the Dutch google “Google” to get to Google. Don’t gloat yet, as the lists for other countries look surprisingly similar, with the names of typical Dutch sites replaced by local favourites. As Bright points out, these results likely have more to do with “the bankruptcy of the address bar” than with a sudden dumbing down of society.
Here’s a clip from hit British series The IT Crowd called “Never Ever Type Google Into Google”