Social networking sites remain the dominant draw of the internet for Irish audiences, according to a Google survey.
The survey - which aggregated millions of queries by Irish internet users over the last 12 months - found queries relating to the Bebo website outnumbered all others.
The fastest growing search item in 2008 related to the other social networking site Facebook.
The Polish networking site nasza klasa also ranked as one of the fastest growing search queries in Ireland, the survey found.
Web-based email services were the next most popular searches with Gmail, hotmail and yahoo all ranking highly.
Searches related to the Lisbon treaty and US presidential election dominated the political queries in Ireland.
Unusually, searches concerning French president Nicolas Sarkozy outnumbered those related to George Bush or Brian Cowen among Irish internet users.
Queries about anti-Lisbon campaigner Declan Ganley also outnumbered those relating to former taoiseach Bertie Ahern or US president-elect Barack Obama.
Proof that the economy is now in recession is reflected in the searches for new cars which have fallen by 75 per cent since the start of the year.
Searches for used cars from Northern Ireland were among the fastest rising search terms in this category in 2008.