LOS ANGELES (AP) ― The world’s attention wavered between the tragic and the silly in 2012, and along the way, millions of people searched the web to find out about a royal princess, the latest iPad, and a record-breaking skydiver.

Whitney Houston was the “top trending’’ search of the year, according to Google Inc.’s year-end “zeitgeist’’ report. Google’s 12th annual roundup is “an in-depth look at the spirit of the times as seen through the billions of searches on Google over the past year,’’ the company said in a blog post Wednesday.

People around the globe searched en masse for news about Houston’s accidental drowning in a bathtub just before she was to perform at a pre-Grammy Awards party in February.

Google defines topics as “trending’’ when they garner a high amount of traffic over a sustained period of time.

Korean rapper Psy’s “Gangnam Style’’ music video trotted into second spot, a testament to his self-deprecating giddy-up dance move. The video is approaching a billion views on YouTube.

Superstorm Sandy, the damaging storm that knocked out power and flooded parts of the East Coast in the midst of a U.S. presidential campaign, was third.

The next biggest trending searches globally were a pair of threes: the iPad 3 tablet from Apple Inc. and Diablo 3, a popular video game.