The top 10 words and phrases searched on Google in 2013 by users in Armenia that have grown significantly from a previous period (also known as “rising searches“) were “harazat tshnami”, “kino 2013”, “a10”, “vk”, “qaxaqum”, “shamshyan”, “gmail”, “masha”, “masha medved”, and “perevodchik”.
The phrases “harazat tshnami” and “kino 2013” Google Trends rated as “breakout”, meaning the terms experienced growth greater than 5000% in 2013.
These words and phrases provide some insight about the most common interests of Google search users in Armenia.
TV seriess interest Armenians. Leading the top 10, Harazat Tshnami (“Own Enemy“) is a TV series broadcast on Armenia TV. Qaxaqum refers to Shant TV’s program Qaxaqum (“In the City“).
From the search term “kino 2013” it can be assumed that Armenians searched for films produced in 2013 (“kino” means “film” in Armenian). “Vk” is also related to films, as well as to music. It refers to the Russian social networking site VKontakte, which is often used to watch and upload unauthorized films, music, and games.
The two nearly identical searches “masha” and “masha medved” show that the most searched animation series in Armenia in 2013 was the Russian TV series Masha and the Bear.
“A10” is a site offering free online games. People like computer games and the choice for the majority of users in Armenia was this site.
In the case of the search term “Shamshyan” users searched for either the notorious local photojournalist Gagik Shamshyan or his television product — car accidents.
The term “perevodchik”, perhaps, can be considered a sign of the educational or practical use of the internet. Armenian users searched for online translation tools, either not knowing the URL for Google Translate or not trusting this service.
In the case of the search term “gmail” it can be assumed that interest in Armenia toward this Google product is increasing.
There’s another distinctive observation concerning the top 10 search terms in Armenia: all are in Latin letters (that is, not in Armenian script). Searching in Armenian, it seems, has not yet been widely adopted.
Gegham Vardanyan
The views expressed in the column are those of the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of Media.am.
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