YouTube launches music charts in 44 countries. This is interesting data for music nerds.

When someone quoted the music charts in the past, chances are they were referring to the charts published by Billboard, long considered the bible of this method of keeping score. Everyone from sales, streams and radio airplay go into determining the journeys of songs and albums in and out of favour.

Billboard’s charts (and, if you’re in the UK, those published by Official Charts) are still a very important source of information, but the Internet era has created plenty of new metrics when it comes to assessing a song’s popularity.

iTunes

Although digital sales continue to plummet, industry types are still keen to know who’s buying what. And because iTunes publishes what’s called “a moving chart” (i.e. rankings that are constantly being updated and not just released on a weekly basis), we can sometimes see some interesting moves from day to day or even hour to hour.

Shazam

People are forever using the Shazam app to identify songs they like but don’t know. This data offers insight on which songs are popping with the public.

Soundhound

Shazam’s main competitor compiles the same sort of data.

Spotify

What songs are being streamed by who and where? This information has become extraordinarily valuable to everyone in the music industry. Google Play and Apple Music have their own streaming charts.

There are more, but you get the idea.

Now YouTube has entered the fray. Because YouTube remains an important source of both music and music discovery, the industry needs to know who is watching what in any of 44 countries around the world.

Take a browse here. It’s interesting to see what videos are hot around the world.