Poker Rivals Paris (Hilton) As Most-Searched Internet Category For 2006Poker Rivals Paris (Hilton) As Most-Searched Internet Category For 2006

An indication of what's on the minds of America's Internet surfers -- celebrities, talented or not -- was revealed Wednesday when AOL and Lycos announced the results of the top searches carried out by visitors to their Web sites in 2006.

AOL users picked Paris Hilton, a professional celebrity, as their most searched-for celebrity while singer Clay Aiken was the top choice at Lycos.

Among Lycos searchers, their favorite search wasn't a person this year, but a new phenomenon: poker. "Search activity for poker has been steadily climbing since it made its first appearance on the 2004 year-end list at number 10," Lycos reported, noting that searches for poker had climbed 434% in the last year.

Celebrities nevertheless had their day in the sun at Lycos as Pamela Anderson finished fourth and Paris Hilton was in fifth place. Britney Spears was tenth.

Aiken was the most-searched-for male of the year on Lycos while Pamela Anderson, already noted, garnered the most votes for a female personality.

"This annual list of top searches is always a fun way to look back at the year and see what sparked interest," said Timothy Tuttle, AOL Video VP, in a statement. The top searched word on AOL was "weather."

The top news story at AOL was gas prices. At Lycos it was the Iraq war.

Computer and high-tech searches were conspicuous by their absence. The closest Web surfers came to showing interest in the field were searches for Apple Computer's iPod -- it was the most searched-for gadget on AOL Search; at Lycos, the iPod was the fourth most-searched "fad" of 2006, ranking behind poker, MySpace, and RuneScape.