Graphing the popularity of a breaking news story...

The BadBlue automated news service added a cool new feature this weekend: you can now track the popularity of a given news story over time. Here's an example:

If you visit the BadBlue home page, you'll notice each story has the following format: headline, news source, popularity and permalink (the ∞ symbol).

Obviously, if you click on the headline, you'll go to the news story. If you click on the name of the news source, you'll get a complete listing of the top stories collected by the news service:

You'll also notice from the detail above that there is a permalink symbol (the ∞ mark). Click on that to see the chart of that story's popularity and any comments on the story itself.

Check it out. It's kinda like the Drudge Report, but automated to be more non-partisan. Heh.