This is endlessly fascinating for news dorks like me: BBC News Most Popular Now page. I’m really excited to see how news aggregation data is being mushed and mashed by outlets like BBC. Here’s a snip from BBC about how it works, and the dynamic ways you can play with different continents — and kudos to BBC for disclosing in real-time their readership percentage levels:
The new ‘Most Popular Now’ features reveal which stories people are reading and e-mailing to their friends, which video clips they are watching, and how this changes minute-by-minute through the day.
Data is collected via a piece of code placed on every page within the BBC News site. Information is collected and processed in real time by the BBC News Live Stats system.
This system has been developed within the BBC News Interactive Development team.
Key features:
The most read and e-mailed module appears on the front page and every story within the News site.
The modules on the UK edition reflect the activity on the UK edition, whereas the modules on the international edition reflect the behaviour of users of that site. Both are updated in real time.
The Most Popular Now page provides a wide range of additional information.
The world map allows you see which stories are generating the most interest in different regions of the world. Clicking on a continent will automatically reorder the top 10. Again, this is captured in real time.