Houston among top 2012 searches (From Bridgwater Mercury)

Houston among top 2012 searches

3:33pm Wednesday 12th December 2012 in Entertainment News © Press Association 2013

Whitney Houston was the "top trending" web search of the year, Google has revealed.

People around the globe searched for news about the late diva's death, according to Google Inc's year-end "zeitgeist" report.

Korean rapper PSY's Gangnam Style music video trotted into second spot in Google's annual round-up, which the company said is "an in-depth look at the spirit of the times as seen through the billions of searches on Google over the past year".

Superstorm Sandy, which knocked out power and flooded parts of the East Coast in the midst of a US presidential campaign, was third.

Other items on the list included the iPad 3 tablet from Apple, Kate Middleton and Michael Clarke Duncan, the Green Mile actor who died of a heart attack in September at age 54.

Meanwhile, according to Twitter, the year's most popular retweets included Justin Bieber's farewell to six-year-old fan Avalanna Routh, who died of a rare form of brain cancer: "RIP Avalanna. i love you".