I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on the + or – impact this will have on storytelling and publishing.

One of the hottest new categories of software development revolves around virality prediction. That is, determining what stories and social media trends are about to go viral.

On Wednesday, Google tossed its hat into the ring by expanding Google Trends and introducing real-time trend information — a tool that could change the way researchers and media channels deliver reports and stories.

SEE ALSO: Silicon Valley: There’s a case for Google buying Twitter

The real-time data tool gives users access to the roughly 100 billion monthly searches performed on Google. Available in 28 countries, the tool also merges information culled from Google News and YouTube to form trend reports.

To help explain some of the reasoning behind devoting so much attention to the area of data-driven storytelling, the Google News Lab team posted a video featuring journalists from The New York Times, Vox, ESPN’s FiveThirtyEight and ProPublica, all explaining why data-driven journalism is important.

http://mashable.com/2015/06/17/google-real-time-trends/?utm_cid=mash-com-Tw-main-link