7 Ways to Track Hot Trends on the Internet

Share Wed, Jul 14, 2010

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trends 7 Ways to Track Hot Trends on the Internet

As the Internet progressively moves towards real-time information, the need to know what’s popular right now is becoming increasingly important.  Here are the best ways to track trends of all types, so you’ll always be in the know about what’s hot on the Internet.

1. How to track popular Internet video trends

magma 7 Ways to Track Hot Trends on the Internet

Mag.ma is the definitive source when it comes to tracking what’s hot for Internet videos.  It aggregates all the hot videos from sites like YouTube, Vimeo and Daily Motion, takes into account social media buzz, links, positive reviews, how fast views are growing, then and shows you a selection of videos which are up and coming. 

Because it tracks chatter from around the web and links to the video as well, using Mag.ma, you’ll usually be able to watch viral videos very early on rather than waiting for it to hit the masses.

2. How to track hot Twitter trends

 trendistic 7 Ways to Track Hot Trends on the Internet

Trendistic is one of the most visual ways to track Twitter trends out there.  What I really like about it is that it helps you understand popular trends, and the tweets that were happening at that particular point in time when the topic became hot.  Many other services just show you what’s hot and the current tweets about that topic (you can also get that here), so there is little retrospective understanding about what actually happened when the topic was trending and became viral.

It also offers up some great tools like hourly/weekly/monthly charts, and the ability to embed these charts into your own website. 

3. How to track popular search trends

google trends

Google Trends Hot List shows you the hottest searches on the web right now.  Close to real time, this is probably the single greatest indicator as to what people are searching for now.  Google trends of course also allows you to track buzz of any given keyword across time. 

Trendy Bing uses Google Trends hot list, but the results are published in Bing instead of Google.  The result is a slightly richer experience with videos and photos to complement the search results.

4. How to track popular image trends

digg images

Digg Images is my favorite location when I want to find out what images are taking the Internet by storm.  While Digg showcases all the most popular content of every genre be it videos/news/tech, the image section is particularly unique as there are few sources online which really capture what images/photos are really popular now.

5. How to track popular news trends

newsmap 7 Ways to Track Hot Trends on the Internet

Newsmap is a fantastic visualization tool when it comes to determining what news is hot right now.  It aggregates Google News and makes the more popular (the more written about) stories larger and more prominent, so in one glance, you’ll be able to see what’s hot.  You can also customize it by topic and location to give you an even more focused look.

6. How to track popular feed subscription trends

feedcompare 7 Ways to Track Hot Trends on the Internet

Website subscription can be considered the ultimate gauge of reader loyalty.  These are people who have signed up and subscribed to your news/blog feed, and want to be notified every time something new comes out.  In terms of measuring loyal readers, this measure makes more sense than raw traffic.

Feed Compare is a free way to compare and chart RSS subscription of most websites (if they use feedburner).  Just type in the websites you want to compare, choose the timeframe, and just compare away!

7. How to track your email trends

mail trends

No, there isn’t a service which allows you to track what people are saying on email :)  There is however, one called ‘Mail Trends’ which allows you to track what you are saying on Gmail.  It allows you to get more insight on key email stats for example:

  • Distribution of messages by year, month, day, day of week and time of day
  • The top senders, recipients and mailing lists you’re on.
  • The distribution of thread lengths and the lists and people that result in the longest threads

Try it, the results may surprise you.

Do you track any other popular trends?  Or do you have different ways of tracking them?  Tell us in the comments :)

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20 Comments For This Post

  1. Daniel Chango Says:

    great post men!!!

    thanks for sharing

  2. Jennifer R Says:

    Well, it will very useful for beginner in the web development community.

  3. Chris Says:

    Great list. I use trends to help generate ideas for blog posts. It’s a good place to seek new insights and ideas.

  4. Multyshades Says:

    It’s very useful and helpful for me thanks for sharing this collection

  5. ed dantes Says:

    I’m a professional trader. When I want to check out the latest business news in one spot, I goto socialnews.biz

  6. James Yeang Says:

    Thanks for all the feedback guys, much appreciated

  7. Josh Says:

    http://chirrps.com is a good one to track the most popular tweets.

  8. ndrew Says:

    I should know this..
    thanks dude..

  9. rio Says:

    Well, it will very useful for beginner in the web development community.

  10. blog reader Says:

    i really bored with topics on fesbuk, but i can found new topic from my friend’s tweet.. :D

  11. James Yeang Says:

    That’s great Yulantip :)

  12. exinco Says:

    you are brilliant man. thanks to this post, it’s really open my eyes

  13. Russ Wallace Says:

    Trendero.com is also a useful tool for tracking lifestyle trends from around the world. So not keyword or geo-trends; these are real media or movements that people are excited about and that they have reported directly to the site.

  14. Kitty Says:

    Thanks for sharing. :)

  15. Dennis Says:

    Great sources for helping folks know where to steer the Blogging ship.
    Thanks for the post.
    Dennis
    Lead, Follow and Share !

  16. Arie Litovsky Says:

    My website, AllHotTrends.com, allows you to track trends based on what users submit and vote on. Check it out, and feel free to submit a trend.

  17. bcoide Says:

    Great post.. Thanks for sharing. I always use http://trendybing.com to check latest google trends, but site needs more I think. anyway it is useful.

  18. Malte Landwehr Says:

    How about instead of just mentioning Trendistic you actually link to it? ;-)

  19. James Yeang Says:

    @Malte: Thanks for pointing out! Corrected :)

  20. Nihar Says:

    Simply Superb post!

    Thanks for the list of 7 sites.

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