Earlier today, bloggers Ory Okolloh and Mark Belinsky wondered whether Apple’s tablet (now unveiled as the iPad) would “kill Haiti like Michael Jackson killed Iran.”    In other words, if some major celebrity or gadget focused news breaks, do those of us online forget what could be considered the real news, involving many real lives.

According to the Pew New Media Index, the answer is yes.   The blogosphere (and social media in general) might indeed be quickening the news cycle, shortening attention spans and causing us to zone out when it comes to hard news…preferring to move onto lighter topics.   Like sex really.

In the first week of January, the mainstream media led with the failed bomb plot on the NWA flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, the economy and terrorism in general.

Looking at blogs however, the NWA flight was number two.   The number one topic that seemed to get bloggers hot under the collar was the Kings College (London) study that the female ‘g-spot’ was a myth.    And third was news that dating site beautifulpeople.com had kicked out 5000 members for not being that aesthetically pleasing.

This actually made the top trending story on Twitter with the NWA terror attempt relegated to number five.

Twitter does over index when it comes to journalists and various social media ‘influencers’ being active members.   Twitter and blogs have also played a key role in giving anti-Government demonstrators in Iran a way of getting the word out.

Yet, at the same time the Pew results also put things into some perspective and reinforce the continued need for serious news journalism.

For example, yesterday, so before the official iPad launch, Venture Beat produced a list of Twitter trends for various US and non US cities.

‘Thoughts on the toilet’ trended just about everywhere…but interest in Haiti seeming to be decidedly on the wane.   While it was still a top trend in LA, San Francisco and London it was no longer on the trends list for Washington, New York or Sao Paolo.

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• Twitter Intro Local Trends (appscout.com)
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In its leaked plans earlier this year, Twitter said its aim was to become “the pulse of the planet.”

The top Twitter trends for 2009 show that it’s succeeded in becoming, if nothing else, the pulse of English speakers on the planet, in line with the US accounting for 60%+ users and the UK coming in a distant second with 8%.

Michael Jackson and Susan Boyle led in the people category, while Harry Potter and the Twilight spin-off New Moon headed up ‘films.’    The Iran Elections were generally considered to be a turning point in the development of Twitter (as it outflanked mainstream news services in providing info on what was going on), so it’s no surprise that Iran ranked top followed by Swine Flu.

But did the collective mixture of complaints and whoops of delight from UK Tweeple at snow in February and December really succeed in making ‘UK Snow’ the number eight trending news topic?   Guess the old stereotype about Brits and talking about the weather really is true, as proven by Twitter.

(Via Kate Kendall)

This is a short post for the forthcoming Cow Digital digest, which Louise Doherty and myself put together every week.  Sign up for it here!

According to Google, the fastest growing search terms for 2009 so far have been Michael Jackson, Facebook and Tuenti, the latter being a leading Spanish social network.   Meanwhile the top three searches for Microsoft’s search engine ‘Bing’, are likewise Michael Jackson and Facebook, with Swine Flu in third place.

Perhaps of more interest is Google’s list of fast falling searches.  Barack Obama, Amy Winehouse and Heath Ledger all figure.  

So, perhaps worryingly for the brands in question do video sharing site Daily Motion, social network Bebo and Nintendo’s game console, the wii.