Internet Trends
The current trend on the Internet is a strengthening of the trend that started a while back, the so called Web 2.0 where the audience is part of the message. Collaboration online would be another way to put it - the visitors are welcome to add their own comments and even fill in content if they like.
Ordinary people are being heard, not just the established media, as the blog trend strengthens. A large part of this is the a result of the revenues that can come from good content online. People who write good stuff are rewarded and some can even make a living working with their blogs.
Search engines fill a bigger role than ever before - most internet traffic passes through search engines (google, msn, yahoo) or the new specialized search engines that index only blogs (technirati) or popular material (digg, delicious).
The top search words have remained the same for the last 6 months or so. They include Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and a few more young women. The most interesting to watch from a social perspective are the overall movers, the words that are gaining popularity. Just from taking a look at that list you can instantly tell what the world is currently discussing. And it's likely not to be world famine or environmental challenges. More likely it'll concern a late night scandal on live television where someone did something that was far from expected.
Take a look at the over all search engine movers, Yahoo has a brilliant page about this called the "Internet Buzz", click here.