Billboard and Twitter today launched a new interactive chart – the Billboard Trending 140 – that ranks shared songs in the U.S. by analyzing the fastest-moving tracks (in terms of the acceleration of shares via tweet) over the past hour. The result is a real-time presentation of the most-shared tracks in the country. Billboard plans to share weekly summaries of the new chart’s findings in the form of a ” Billboard Twitter Top Tracks” chart, via both the magazine’s website and print publication.
According to Billboard, this new chart tracks song shares on Twitter by monitoring a few different criteria:
- the use, or inclusion, of a link to the song via music-listening platforms, such as Spotify, Vevo, and iTunes.
- the use of various track-sharing notations, such as the hashtags “#nowplaying” or “#np,” along with song/artist name
- the use of various terms associated with the song and song playing, such as “music,” “song,” “track,” and “listen.”
The collaboration has also yielded an additional chart titled Emerging Artists, which aims to rank “the most shared songs from up-and-coming artists on Twitter over the last 24 hours.” Billboard and Twitter consider an artist to be “up-and-coming” when said artist has fewer than 50,000 Twitter followers and has not previously appeared as a leading artist in the top 50 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 list.
The two new charts join Billboard’s growing collection of music consumption-tracking services, including the Social 50, On-Demand Songs, and Streaming Songs charts.
The collaborators have put together an FAQ for those looking for more information on the new real-time charts.
