Next Big Sound is a Compete.com for Artist Popularity

Next Big Sound tracks how music fans interact with specific artists on the web.

The site monitors artist popularity by  keeping track of what songs are being played, number of comments, fans and page views on the likes of MySpace, Twitter, Facebook, iLike and Last.fm.

The best way to think of it is as a Compete or Alexa for artist popularity. Sure, this is something that your average music fan simply won’t be interested in, but for your average music label and artist – you can bet your house on it. It’s pretty fascinating to see the monumental surges of interest on specific days like Michael Jackson’s death.

Aside from tracking popularity, there isn’t much other interactivity aside from letting you subscribe to individual artists via RSS or email to receive weekly updates on performance. Nevertheless, the design and simplicity of the site makes it a top draw for anyone interested intelligence for the music industry.