This week’s thwarted terrorist plot set off a frenzy of activity at the Search box. One-third of our top 100 Buzz movers on Thursday were queries on airports around the world. Not surprisingly, Heathrow Airport had the largest increase, up 1,520%. Other notable airport spikes included: “logan airport” (+480%), “gatwick airport” (+667%), and “laguardia airport” (+296%).
Official agencies were also hot in Search, as evidenced by increases on “homeland security” (+2,883%) and “transportation security administration” (+2,033%).
Folks curious about their travel plans or possible delays in picking up precious cargo were busy checking out “flight status” (+193%), “flight arrivals,” (+192%), and “flight tracker” (+158%).
News-hungry searchers looking for the latest information caused “headline news,” “breaking news,” and “latest news” to surge. And of course, many turned to CNN globetrotter Anderson Cooper (+247%) to make sense of it all.
Any time terrorism makes headlines, searches on Osama bin Laden (+755%) and Al-Qaida (+300%) always soar. And due to the diabolical nature of the latest plot, queries on “liquid explosives” went from zero into the thousands as puzzled people tried to figure out the mechanics of the latest threat.
Filed under: Law Enforcement, Air Travel, Terrorism
