Fidel Odinga tops trending list in January
Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s son Fidel Odinga is the top trending search on Google in January this year.
Fidel, the eldest son of Mr Odinga, was found dead on his bed early this month. The cause of his death is yet to be established.
Fidel also emerged the top trending person of the month on Google.
Kenyans’ undying love for football remained steadfast with both the FA Cup and Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) tournaments coming in 3rd and 4th trending searches respectively.
While the FA is an annual knockout competition in English football, the Afcon is a biennial football tournament for African countries.
The 30th edition of Afcon is currently ongoing in Equatorial Guinea and will end on February 8.
Probable searches by Kenyans on the two Cups were matches, results and favorite footballers.
It is also in January when renowned Nigerian actor, Muna Obiekwe passed on. Obiekwe died of kidney disease and this took Kenyan Nollywood fans to Google to search more about him.
Besides being the fourth trending search, he emerged the second trending person of the month.
The teachers’ strike, which made headlines for the better part of January came in at number five.
Kenyans were concerned about the stalemate that saw children stay at home for more than two weeks after schools opened in 2015.
Charlie Hebdo, a satirical French weekly magazine also trended in January. Two gunmen, who were later said to be brothers, attacked the magazine offices in Paris and opened fire killing 12 people.
TRENDING SEARCHES
Kenyan gospel musician Gloria Muliro was also in the trending searches after her broken marriage with Congolese preacher husband Eric Omba. She was followed by Paul Kobia, a controversial businessman who was arrested after making alarming claims about the death of Fidel Odinga.
Chris Kyle, the late American Navy Seal sniper, who was killed in 2013 also made it in the January trending searches. Witnesses in a case against this alleged killer testified this month drawing a lot of media attention on the proceedings of the case. Also trending in the month was Lwam Bekele, the wife to Fidel Odinga.
Besides, Fidel, Muna Obiekwe, Gloria Muliro, Paul Kobia, Chris Kyle and Lwam Bekele, other names that made the top trending people are: Njoki Chege, a controversial Daily Nation columnist; Raila Junior, Raila Odinga’s younger son and Krystian Bielik, a 17-year-old Polish football midfielder who joined Arsenal.
As we saw in the 2014 Year in search, ‘What is’ trending searches are driven by students who are looking for specific information. This month, What is networking was number one trending search in this category followed by What is fob and What is pinterest. Other searches were; What is monarch, What is M-pesa, What is thyroid, What is mutation, What is nutmeg and What is chipotle.
Google search trends is a publicly available tool that displays relative search volume across geographies, time periods and queries.
Top trending searches
- Fidel Odinga
- FA cup
- AFCON
- Muna Obiekwe
- Teachers Strike
- Charlie Hebdo
- Gloria Muliro
- Paul Kobia
- Chris Kyle
- Lwam Bekele
Top trending people
- Fidel Odinga
- Muna Obiekwe
- Gloria Muliro
- Paul Kobia
- Chris Kyle
- Lwam Bekele
- Njoki Chege
- Raila Junior
- Mia Khalifa
- Krystian Bielik
Top trending ‘what is’ searches
- What is networking
- What is fob
- What is pinterest
- What is monarch
- What is mpesa
- What is thyroid
- What is mutation
- What is nutmeg
- What is chipotle
- What is editing