Bing's top searches reveal iPhone 5 as No. 1 news story

Believe it or not but the No. 1 most searched for news story on Bing this year has been the launch of Apple's iPhone 5. In fact, the debut of this device beat out the 2012 presidential election, the Olympics, and Superstorm Sandy, which followed respectively for the next top searches. The Honey Boo Boo reality TV show came in at No. 5.

Microsoft released its data on the top searched terms for 2012 today. The lists include information on travel destinations, fashion labels, celebrities, consumer electronics, fast food chains, and more. The tallies of the data are based on the aggregation of billions of user search queries.

Besides Internet users' typical celebrity fascination with Kim Kardashian, Justin Bieber, and Rihanna, technology also made a splash in searches this year. Not only did the iPhone 5 top the news stories, but the launch of the Kindle Fire HD and Facebook's IPO also made the list at places 9 and 10.

Another category Bing rated was the most searched social networks -- and it's no surprise that Facebook came in No. 1 with its more than 1 billion users. Falling in line next came Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Tumblr. As far as consumer electronics, the iPhone 5 also won this category with the iPad, Samsung Galaxy S3, Kindle, and the iPad 3 coming in next. Even with a launch late in the year, Windows 8 also made the list at No. 10.

"People's fascination with the latest smart phones, tablets and games consoles remains unfettered in 2012, with products from Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Samsung topping the list," Bing wrote in a blog post.