Discovered Buzztracker through Slashdot today. What I really like about buzztracker is that it allows me to see at a glance what the most talked about news items are for today. What it’s really doing is mining Google News and creating links between the geographic locations of articles. It’s quite useful to check out the popular news for the day.

Here is a glimpse of what the map was like today:

* Baghdad (38%)
* Vatican (13%)
* Rome (05%)
* Boston (04%)
* Islamabad (04%)
* Cairo (04%)
* Khartoum (03%)
* Beijing (03%)
* Washington (02%)
* Delhi (02%)
* Kathmandu (02%)
* Mosul (02%)
* Pyongyang (02%)
* New Delhi (02%)
* Moscow (02%)
* Oslo (01%)
* Tokyo (01%)
* Chicago (01%)
* Beirut (01%)
* Jerusalem (01%)

Notice the list associated with this map which is quite useful as an adjunct to the map, showing you more clearly what the picture doesn’t. I will definitely use this from time to time to see what’s popular newswise *at the moment*. The great thing is they publish an RSS feed, which easily keeps you updated within your aggregator of choice.