Billboard and Twitter Partner to Create 'Billboard Twitter Real-Time Charts'

Billboard and social media platform Twitter today announced an exclusive, multi-year partnership to create Billboard Twitter Real-Time Charts. The charts, which will launch in the coming weeks, will track U.S. music conversations among the millions of Tweets sent each day. Combining the authority of the Billboard charts and Twitter’s public, real-time data, these powerful co-branded charts will reshape for consumers and the industry the way music success is measured.

As part of the initiative, Billboard and Twitter have signed a Twitter Amplify partnership, which will help distribute the chart beyond Billboard.com and include custom in-Tweet charts and in-Tweet video round ups of the week in music on Twitter

The charts will reflect the top tracks being discussed at the moment and over an extended period of time on Twitter, as well as surface the most talked about and shared songs by new and upcoming acts. The chart will live on Billboard.com and will also be shared through Billboard’s Twitter account, @billboard, multiple times a week.

"Billboard has always been the standard by which music popularity is measured, and Twitter and its millions of users worldwide have added an entirely new dimension and pace to the way the marketplace interacts with, and evaluates, music and music-makers," said Janice Min, Co-President/Chief Creative Officer of the Entertainment Group of Guggenheim Media. "The Billboard Twitter Real-Time Charts, a natural extension for media brands so in sync in the music space, stands to once again dramatically shape the conversation around the content and the business."

"Twitter is where the music of the moment is discovered and discussed — every day, new songs and new artists are breaking on the platform,” said Bob Moczydlowsky, Twitter’s head of music. “We’re partnering with Billboard to create a ground-breaking chart to track the conversation around music as it happens. This means when artists share songs and engage with their audience on Twitter, the buzz they create will now be visible to fans, other musicians and industry decision makers in real-time."

The Billboard and Twitter partnership brings to fruition the first-ever real-time charts on the Billboard platforms and is a continuation of Billboard’s integration of new media music consumption in its chart rankings. From the unveiling of the Social 50 artist chart in 2010, the expansion of song streaming data over the past few years, including Spotify and YouTube into the Hot 100, and the launch of streaming charts covering multiple genres, Billboard continues to be at the forefront in incorporating new technologies in its music rankings.

"Billboard is the number-one destination for vital industry news and analysis, and the place consumers around the world turn to for the best, and what's next, in music," says John Amato, Co-President of the Entertainment Group of Guggenheim Media. "This exciting Twitter partnership extends the Billboard value proposition that much further and deeper into the social media conversation that Twitter so effectively harnesses and drives. This will have tremendous impact on Billboard’s engagement with consumers and the marketplace."

"Billboard has extensive experience building charts that are trusted by both the music industry and consumers which made them the perfect partner for us," said Conway Chen, Director of Business Development at Twitter. "Twitter's data is unique in that it represents a comprehensive view of the world's conversation about anything and everything, including music. These charts will leverage our combined strengths to provide a reliable and unprecedented look into what music matters most to the public in any given moment."

The Billboard brand is built on over 200 exclusive charts - the measure of success in music - that are constantly updated to reflect the changing music landscape. Billboard’s charts, led by the world-recognized Hot 100 songs chart and Billboard 200 albums chart, as well as its content, are consumed and referenced by millions of people around the globe.

Twitter is a global platform for public self-expression and conversation in real time and is available in more than 35 languages and has more than 240 million monthly active users.

I'm not a twitter user and have no idea how to use it. If anyone could shed some light on this article, it would be most appreciated. It's coming off a bit confusing to me and am wondering if / how this will affect the Hot 100 that we update weekly.

This is exactly the sort of nonsense that makes me kinda glad I neither understand nor want anything to do with Twitter.

No, it won't change the "proper" charts. Or it shouldn't. But if it catches on, don't be too shocked if it does, although it's got stupidity written all over it.

I'm already picturing 99% of the songs beginning with hash tags. Sigh .... well, it would be a blessing if this meant that we'd be gaining more imported music which is actually good to replace the same ole, same old rap and country. That's the only good quality I can hope for on this one. There is still really awesome music out there. Sadly, in this age, one would never know it judging by the US charts.   

I was going to respond that it won't be as bad as that.

And then I looked at the way songs that aren't singles are creeping in to the charts. Obviously, the Glee phenomenon was a clear and present example of that, but the UK chart currently has a handful from the 'Frozen' soundtrack. And I daresay it's a cool film (yeah, yeah, a pun), but it makes a mockery of the general music industry that these songs can be counted as singles when they're not   

UPDATE with LINK

Today, Billboard and Twitter officially launch the Billboard Twitter Real-Time Charts. These new, interactive charts redefine how fans interact with, and influence, popular content by ranking the most popular songs being shared on Twitter in the U.S.

VIEW THE CHARTS: TRENDING 140 | EMERGING ARTISTS

The first of the real-time charts, the Billboard Trending 140, is an up to the minute ranking of songs shared in the U.S., measured by acceleration over the past hour. This chart can be filtered to present a real-time view of the most shared track in the U.S. over the past 24 hours, with a weekly summary presented as the Billboard Twitter Top Tracks chart on Billboard.com and in print in Billboard.

Austin Mahone Performs at Billboard Twitter Real-Time Charts Launch Event

The Billboard Twitter Emerging Artists chart is a ranking of the most shared songs on Twitter in the U.S. by up-and-coming artists ranked by the number of times each song was shared over the past 24 hours. Billboard Twitter Emerging Artists is presented as a seven-day/weekly round up on Billboard.com and in print in Billboard.

Song shares are tracked and incorporated into the Billboard Twitter Real-Time Charts by:

* the use of, or the 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," "listen."

The charts are specifically designed to work with how users share and interact with music on Twitter, which is the most discussed subject on the platform in the U.S. with more than one billion Tweets sent about the topic in 2013. One-hundred million of those Tweets came from music accounts, and seven of the top 10 most-followed accounts on the entire platform are musicians.

To launch the Billboard Twitter Real-Time charts, Billboard teamed up with pop star Austin Mahone to showcase just how the sharing of a track by fans on Twitter, in this case with "The Shadow" - a song from his just-released EP "The Secret" - can drive popularity and chart ranking.

"I am thrilled to be one of the first artists to see my songs move on the Billboard Twitter Charts," said Mahone. "For me, it's always about my fans, and I love seeing what all my Mahomies are saying about the new EP – it's exciting that there’s finally a platform that tracks what the fans are saying about music in real-time."

The Billboard Twitter Real-Time charts are another example of Billboard staying at the forefront of tracking music consumption. With the launch in recent years of the Social 50, On-Demand Songs and Streaming Songs, and now the Billboard Twitter Real-Time charts, Billboard has empowered music fans and music consumers with rankings that reflect how they interact with music and artists.

Consistent placement in the high rankings of the real-time chart can help artists gain placement on the two weekly versions of the real-time charts, which will be found in print each week in Billboard magazine.

More detailed information about the Billboard Twitter Real-Time charts can be found here, and be sure to check back often to find the most talked-about artists on Twitter.

Check out Real Time Charts HERE

 http://realtime.billboard.com/?chart=trending140

The only way Damon Albarn will get a #3 record in the US   I can see this backfiring, and the intelligentsia realising the "dangers" of the project.