Looking back at 2008

January 9, 2009

2008 has come to close and as usual the year had it’s high and lows. During the summer we watched some awe-inspiring athletic performances at the Olympic summer games in Beijing. While later in the year we watched our portfolio’s perform a more nauseating set of dives. Here are some online resources to help you remember the year.

Every year Google releases its year-end Zeitgeist. A collection of trends put together from the billions of search queries that people typed into Google over the past 365 days. So what did it tell us about 2008? Seems we were all fascinated by the US presidential election. Globally, “Sarah Palin” was the fastest rising search term. “Obama” topped Canada’s fastest rising list, sorry Sarah. Surprisingly “Free Movies” was also one of the top 10 fastest moving searches for Canadians. Maybe the US election wasn’t that interesting after all! The most popular overall search term in Canada? That was “Facebook”. To explore the results yourself, visit Google.ca and search “Google Zeitgeist 2008″.

Now statistics are one thing, but nothing can capture a moment quite like a photo and 2008 had many. The New York Times website has the “2008 Year in Pictures”. A collection of inspirational and gripping moments from around the world caught on camera. Visit www.NewYorkTimes.com and simply search “2008 Year in Pictures”.

Barrack Obama was Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year” for 2008. Not much of a surprise I suppose. These days all you have to do is have an intern review Google results. I have always imagined Time’s selection process to be a grueling ordeal. A select group of individuals confining themselves in a cramped room for days removing sticky notes from the walls until someone is crowned the champ. If I’m right, this year would have been no exception. The site www.time.com offers those short on time (pardon the pun) with the ultimate 2008 list. Simply called, “The Top 10 Everything of 2008″ this massive list of lists shows the best quotes, top commercials, coolest gadgets and much more.

In my opinion Anheuser-Busch created one of the funniest viral videos of the year. After eight long years they reunited the jokesters from Budweiser’s famous “Wassup” commercials. Only this time they seem to be suffering from the effects of a down economy, the Iraq war, climate change and more. The clip which highlighted many of the big topics in 2008 will stand as a lasting and appropriate summary of the year. On www.YouTube.com, search “Wassup 2008″.

If you’re only looking forward, you’re not alone. From the looks of it people seem to have a positive outlook about 2009. A recent survey on CNN’s homepage shows %75 of people polled expect to have a better year in 2009 than they did in 2008. That optimism is already a great start.