'World Cup' has edged 'Star Wars' out of the top slot on the list of Lycos' 50 most popular user searches for the week ended 1 June.

The term moved up from the tenth rank it enjoyed last week, while the term 'soccer' is a new entrant to the list at number 41, according to Terra Lycos. 'Star Wars', which reigned at the top of net surfers' curiosity till last week, has now dropped to number three.

'Dragonball' continues to remain in the second place, and 'tattoos' has dropped a notch from third place to fourth. Rounding out the top five is 'Miss Universe' - a new entry to the list largely due to the contest held on 29 May. The Lycos 50 is compiled from 12 million queries from Internet users on the Lycos Network.

Specific player searches by Lycos indicate that Lycos UK users helped to drive soccer searches for English strikers David Beckham and Michael Owen, two of the Internet's most searched soccer stars. The surprise this week was the Miss Universe pageant, which received nearly 20 times as many searches as last year, the highest Lycos ranking ever for a beauty pageant.

While MTV's hit reality series 'The Osbournes' did not make it to the top 50, Anna Nicole Smith did, thanks to news that she would be starring in her own reality based Osbournes like reality show for the E! Network. New entries to the list of 50 include Oprah Winfrey and Martha Stewart (separately at numbers 46 and 50 respectively). Pokemon at number 47, has reappeared on The Lycos 50 after dropping off the list on April 2. Prior to April, says Lycos, Pokemon made every top 50 list since August 1999 and only fell out of the top 20 once - the week of the terrorist attack on America.


Click here for Archives