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Web Users Flock to Internet in Record Numbers Following Attack On America WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 18, 2001-- Nostradamus Receives More Searches in One Week Than Any Other Topic in Past Two Years the Lycos 50(TM) For Week Ending September 15, 2001 Terra Lycos (NASDAQ: TRLY), the largest global Internet network, today announced the following information from The Lycos 50(TM), the 50 most popular user searches for the week ending September 15, 2001. For a complete list of The Lycos 50(TM) and for in-depth text of The Lycos 50 Daily Report, go to http://50.lycos.com. The Lycos 50(TM) Top 10 Search Terms for the Week Ending September 15, 2001: 1) Nostradamus Notes of Interest: In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, The Lycos 50 like everything else in America, has fundamentally changed. Tuesday's terrorist attacks led to a massive search for information never before seen in the history of the Internet. Half of the subjects on this week's list are new terms directly related to the attacks. The number one subject is not the World Trade Center (#2) nor is it terrorist suspect Osama Bin Laden (#3). Thanks to an e-mail hoax, the number one searched term is 16th century seer Nostradamus. The hoax, which originated with a student at Brock University in Canada in the 1990s and appeared on a Web page essay on Nostradamus, resulted in false rumors that Nostradamus predicted last week's attack on America. Nostradamus received more searches in one week than any other single subject since The Lycos 50 began two years ago. Nostradamus was misspelled in more than 100 ways and received 12.5 times as many searches as former number one term, Dragonball, which fell to number eight. Additional search terms related to Sept. 11 aftermath: The American Flag (#6) also appears on this week's Lycos 50. Another illustration of patriotism is the circulation of the e-mail of an editorial authored by Canadian broadcaster Gordon Sinclair (#32) in 1973. The piece, entitled "The Americans," describes the United States, the good neighbors. Other searches making first-time appearances on the list following last week's terrorist attacks were Flightview (#46), a Web site that tracks commercial airline flights in the U.S. and Cantor Fitzgerald (#45), a leading treasury bond brokerage company based in the World Trade Center. More than 650 of Cantor Fitzgerald's employees are still missing following Tuesday's attacks. Just Missing The Lycos 50: Additional topics narrowly missing this week's list include: "God Bless America" (#52), Israel (#53), Boeing (#56), gas prices (#58), Barbara Olson (#63), "Proud to be an American," a.k.a. "God Bless the USA" (#75), blood donation (#77) and CIA (#80). Normal Life Continues online: Despite the crisis facing America, Web users still found time to search for Dragonball, Britney Spears (#17), the NFL(#15), Tattoos (19), Big Brother (#9), and Whitney Houston (#10). Web users were particularly interested in Houston following a false rumor that the singer died of a drug overdose last weekend.
NEWSFILE: 18 SEPTEMBER 2001 |