Bitstrips – Instant comics starring you and your friends.
While significant interest didn’t start until October, Bitstrips seem to have taken over Facebook. After all, who needs to write a status update when a comic can do it for you?
Vine – Create and share beautiful looping videos.
I don’t know if I’d consider most vines “beautiful” but definitely some great humor could be had with them. This application continued to rise in popularity throughout the year though really ramped up beginning in July.
Candy Crush – Welcome to the Candy Shop!
Royal Games’ color matching and combination game that had everyone knowing exactly what they meant by “Sweet”. Searches really began to take off in April though beginning in late fall they tapered down through the holidays – perhaps the thought of virtual candy wasn’t as appealing as the real thing during the holidays?
MeetMe – Where friends meet.
This is one of those that catch me by surprise, but it seems you can’t throw a stick without hitting an online dating or singles mixer group these days. The site had a steady popularity throughout the year, which would seem to indicate it has a rather solid user base, but isn’t growing.
Snapchat – Apparently everyone should know what this is.
While the site is a bit ambiguous, fortunately many bloggers and news outlets took to offering a description of the service’s Photo and Video sharing capabilities when this Stanford startup turned down a $3 Billion offer from Facebook. I’d say “good luck with that”, but things seem to be going well as a sharp increase in search volume hit after the announcement in November.
Top 100 Searches in 2013