Google released it’s Zeitgeist report this week: its most searched terms. Sarah Palin and Obama both made the top ten in the overall global and US lists and were among the top three people searched in the US. Number four in that category? Lil Wayne.

Both the most popular people and most popular searches were heavy on the pop and politics. More esoteric searches such as the “what is” category produced three of the all-time favorites: what is love (1), life (2), art (10), as well as a few head-scratchers: scientology (6), 3g (9), java (3).

Separately, in the top 10 most viewed online videos of the year, eight of the ten were label-produced music videos. The other two: Palin’s interview with Katie Couric, and Obama’s speech on race — a near 40 minute tour de force that has clocked in more than 40 million views. (Palin’s own 8 min. tour de force was the third most viewed video with 56m).

Parsing the web-centric upheaval in our industries has become the anxiety-ridden hobby du jour as the mainstream media and alternatives struggle to come up with working business models while the titans wobble. Yet one cannot deny that we are seeing more content than ever; more outlets, more providers. All of this places a greater burden on the individual to craft patterns for consuming media. The hope is that what one eventually consumes will be better suited to one’s tastes, but I smell a paradox of choice. Of course, I want my MTV (online, thanks) too.

So, what’s your strategy?

Me, I’ll waffle between smarty design talk and brooklyn girls:

—
the fader stays part of the new music strategy. (song: Charles Hamilton).
Further reading on our preferences from NYT mag.