A year ago I decided to see who “owned” each letter of the alphabet when doing a Google search. Simply go to Google, type in just one letter, and see what is suggested.

Let’s see what changes a year can make. Those with a “*” were there last year.

A – Amazon *
B – Best Buy *
C – the speed of light (Craiglist was second)
D – Durham Bulls (some still get Dictionary from last year)
E – natural logarithm (eBay is second)
F – Facebook *
G – Gmail *
H – Planck’s Constant (hotmail is second)
I – iPad (IRS drops to fifth)
J – Justin Bieber (Java is second, JCPenny from last year is fifth)
K – Kohls *
L – Lowes *
M – Mapquest (MySpace is second)
N – Netflix *
O – Orbitz *
P – Pandora (Photobucket is gone)
Q – QVC (Quotes is second)
R – REI (Redbox is second, Realtor from last year is fourth)
S – Sears (Skype is second and Southwest Airlines is gone)
T – Target *
U – USPS *
V – Verizon (Verizon Wireless, from last year, is second)
W – Walmart *
X – Xbox (xkcd is second, then XM Radio)
Y – Youtube *
Z – Zappos (Zillow is second)

So the big losers look like Photobucket and Southwest Airlines.

MySpace continues to decline, and I could never understand why Zappos wasn’t first last year (I had never heard of Zillow).

I am only vaguely aware of who Justin Bieber is, but he rules the “Js”, although Java now makes a strong showing at number two. I was also happy to see xkcd up there.

It was funny to see scientific hits, like the speed of light, coming up first, although in every case the number one from last year has simply moved down one.

The “D” was funny, since I think it is location-based. I asked a number of people on IRC and they got different things.

Anyway, until next year …