The Burj Khalifa, the teen pop sensation Justin Bieber and "the meaning of love" have generated the most interest from UAE internet users this year, a survey has shown.
The world's tallest tower, which opened in January, topped the list of fastest-rising search terms, or those that shot up in popularity in 2010, in the annual Google Zeitgeist report on global and national trends, which was released yesterday.
The poll ranked the 10 most popular UAE search terms for seven categories: fastest rising, most popular, fastest-rising people, most popular news site, most popular discovery, fastest-rising social network and fastest-rising online service.
"The UAE results show that more users are using the Internet to obtain information that is relevant to them, such as utility bill payment and online banking," said Ari Kesisoglu, the Google manager for the Mena region.
Among the movers this year were the online forum Tartoob, at which members post photos and videos; Fantage, where children explore a virtual world; and GameZer, where visitors play billiards or other games. Also on the list were this year's World Cup and Emirates NBD Bank.
The most commonly searched terms were the popular sites YouTube and Facebook, the email services Yahoo and Gmail and news sites such as the Indian outlet Malayala Manorama.
The most popular celebrities behind Mr Bieber were a diverse international crew ranging from the Colombian singer Shakira, who sang the 2010 World Cup theme song, to the Bollywood actor Salman Khan.
Leading the list of top queries were the eternally elusive questions "what is love" and "what is life", both of which also made last year's top 10 list.
