Yahoo! Reveals Most-Searched List For 2008

Oprah, Tina Fey, Katie Couric and Barbara Walters all made the top ten list of women searched for on Yahoo! in 2008.

In the search engine's annual assessment of online popularity, Winfrey came in third, Fey sixth, Couric eighth, and Walters ninth.

While Hillary Clinton (fourth on the list) made news as the first woman with a shot at a major party nomination for president, she was topped by the Republican's number two, Sarah Palin, who came in at an appropriate number two, though perhaps she should get some partial credit for Tina Fey searches as well given the latter's cult status as the best Palin mimic of the bunch. Angelina Jolie was number one.

Overall, Britney Spears led the list of most searched for terms of any type (though Miley Cyrus led "celebrity" searchers), followed by World Wrestling Entertainment at number two, topping the next president, Barack Obama at number 3, who did top political searches. Also making the top 10 searches from the TV world was American Idol at number 10.

Deaths that reverberated across the Web included a number of TV folks, including Bernie MAc (number two behind Heath Ledger), George Carlin at number five, Estelle Getty at number 6, Tim Russert at number 7 and Isaac Hayes at number 9.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.