Want to find out what music people are writing about, listening to, watching, and downloading?
Look no further than the BBC's recently launched Sound Index, bringing you the top 1,000 artists and tracks every 6 hours.
A massive index of the hottest bands and tracks that are being talked about right now.
It's basically music charts meets social networking — the Sound Index crawls Bebo, MySpace, Last.fm, iTunes, Google and YouTube — and the more blog mentions, comments, plays, downloads and profile views an artist or track has, the higher up they rank.
My favorite part is the “My Index” area. Here you can filter the results by music genre, website, or even the views of people of different ages, genders, and locations to effectively build your own chart.
And if you're looking for something really specific, try the “Profiles” feature where you can search for a specific artist or track to see how they rank.
The site says they're still tweaking the data and algorithms, and I'm looking forward to seeing where they go with it. This is definitely NOT your father's music charts!
P.S. On the surface, the concept sounds similar to The Hype Machine, which I described as a great way to discover new music, but the execution couldn't be more different — and both are worth a look.
