CNN launches tool to track most buzzed stories

The news broadcaster CNN has launched CNN Trends, a news discovery dashboard that enables users to track and explore the Web's most buzzed about stories. The new offering identifies the most conversation-provoking news topics to pair with a CNN story and content from up to ten additional sources.

"A healthy media diet consists of news, analysis and perspectives from more than one source," said K C Estenson, SVP CNN Digital. "CNN Trends embraces that concept and expands on it by allowing the social Web to determine which stories are featured. It's the perfect place to discover new content and advance the narrative of a trending headline."

The technology is by by Zite, which was acquired by CNN in August 2011. CNN said that this technology integration democratises the editorial process through the social curation of news content. By matching the moment's top news trends with additional sources and new perspectives, users can advance and expand their understanding of the topic. The result is a collaborative media experience.

CNN Trends methodology

CNN Trends monitors conversations through the social Web and surfaces the topics of greatest relevancy.

To provide context for the user, each trend is anchored by a piece of content from CNN.com.

CNN Trends matches to each trending topic up to ten additional sources, providing users a launch pad to explore new perspectives and related analysis from a diverse array of publishers.

As the news cycle progresses, CNN Trends finds new content and analysis to complement the evolving storyline.