ReadWriteWeb

BBC Radio 1 announced a major update to their music charts about a week ago. Traditionally, mainstream music popularity has been measured by album sales or radio plays -- or a combination of the two. But with albums selling fewer copies through traditional channels and radio losing ground to online music, the Beeb decided to take a look at the web to determine artist popularity. Their new Sound Index app, determines the top 1,000 artists based on buzz across some of the web's largest music, video, and social networking sites.