The meme first started gaining traction last week and is attributed to a silly video from a vlogger named "Filthy Frank." Though it was another user named SunnyCoastSkate who then established the form we've become familiar with: the jump cut, the helmet, etc. 

The spin-offs spread very quickly. As of Feb 11th, around 12,000 "Harlem Shake" videos had been posted since the start of the month and they'd already been watched upwards of 44 million times. At its peak, over 4,000 of these videos were being uploaded per day.

Nova Scotia led all searches for the Harlem Shake. And it was the university towns of Waterloo, Guelph and London who were the top 3 Canuck towns doing the shake on Google.

Pope Odds
Within hours of Pope Benedict XVI’s abdication, major bookmakers started placing odds on his successor, with Cardinals from Ghana and Nigeria among the early favourites.We looked at the top 5 frontrunners according to the bookies. See trends chart here. Ghana’s Cardinal Turkson is seen as the frontrunner by the bookies and he’s leading global searches by a 2:1 margin. Canada’s Cardinal Ouellet ranks third in terms of Google searches worldwide.

Target effect 
With Target set to open its first stores in Canada next month, interest in the retailer is beginning to pick up just as searches for other retailers look to be taking a dip. While Target trails most major national retailers in terms of Google searches, it recently caught up and passed searches for The Bay.

Finance
‘Tis the season for RRSPs! Canadian searches for RRSPs are down by nearly a third since Tax Free Savings Accounts (TFSAs) were introduced.

Horse Recipes 
As recent news from Europe suggests, horses are not just for riding.Canadian searches for “horse recipes” spiked in February jumping to an all-time high. Searches for equine dishes were most popular in Alberta and BC.

Posted by Aaron Brindle, Google Canada

The controversial Zero Dark Thirty and the dark comedy Silver Linings Playbook did not crack the top five searches.

Other front runners (according to Canadian Google searches):
Lead Actor - Bradley Cooper
Lead Actress - Jennifer Lawrence
Supporting Actor - Christoph Waltz
Supporting Actress - Anne Hathaway
Director - Steven Spielberg

I would like to thank the Academy and all those Googling Canadians out there who made this post possible. And my agent.

Posted by Aaron Brindle, Google Canada

Despite the football playoffs, NHL-related searches are outpacing NFL searches in January by a margin of 3:1. PEI, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia are leading January searches for ‘hockey’ - all provinces without an NHL team.

And with the help of the Google Maps API, Metro News assembled a quick snapshot of interesting Trend Tidbits from across the country.



View Metro's Canadian Google Trends - January, 2013 in a larger map

Posted by Aaron Brindle, Google Canada

Battle of the Brothers
In Canada, searches for 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh are outpacing searches for his brother, and Ravens head coach, John Harbaugh by 85 %.

Cue the Commercials
In 2012, Canadians searched for ‘super bowl commercials’ on both Google and YouTube more than any other country in the world, including the U.S. In each of the last two years, PEI and Ontario searched the most on Google for “super bowl”; yet, Saskatchewan and Alberta recorded the highest volume of searches for ‘super bowl commercials’

Super Bowl of Calories
What's your game day menu? Canadian Google searches for “Chicken Wings” peak every year during the week of the Super Bowl.

And remember, as far as party tricks go during awards shows, nothing beats having a star’s Kevin Bacon number at your fingertips. Just type [Bacon number Quentin Tarantino] into your Google search bar to discover that Tarantino is just two degrees away from Kevin Bacon, having appeared in the classic Resevoir Dogs with Chris Penn, who was in the original Footloose with none other than Kevin Bacon.

Stay tuned with us as we bring you more movie magic leading up to the Oscars on February 24.

Posted by Leslie Church, Google Canada