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The tragic death of an internet technology reporter proved to have a more significant effect on Google News searches in December than the death of a former US president and soul legend James Brown.

The body of James Kim, a journalist with technology news site CNET, was discovered in early December in Southwestern Oregon.

Thirty-five year-old Mr Kim died of hypothermia trying to get help for his young family after their car had become stuck in snow in a remote area.

The story of Mr Kim’s 11-day disappearance was followed online by a concerned community of CNET devotees as well as the wider public.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle , MSNBC.com reported one million page views on the story, making it the top story in the hours after Kim's body was found. CNN.com reported twice as many page views that afternoon as the Iraq story. Google Zeitgeist , which charts popular searches, compiled a list of December Google News queries about people that had recently died.

Searches for Mr Kim outnumbered news searches for James Brown, who died shortly before Christmas, former US president Gerald Ford and Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.

Top Google News search queries: December 2006

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Oliver Luft

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