System for determining changes in the relative interest of subjects

1. A method for determining changes in the count of news articles related to a subject over a recent time period, the method comprising:

measuring a count of news articles for the subject produced by a present news source configuration over the recent time period;

determining a reconfiguration factor to account for changes between the present news source configuration and a previous news source configuration, wherein determining the reconfiguration factor includes dividing the frequency of news articles for all subjects of a recent server configuration by the frequency of news articles for all subjects of a previous server configuration;

applying the reconfiguration factor to a count of news articles for the subject for a previous time period to obtain a new count;

comparing the count of news articles for the subject over the recent time period to the new count; and

signaling when the comparison yields a difference greater than a predetermined amount.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising storing in a database the count of news articles for the subject over the recent time period.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising receiving news articles from at least one news source.

4. The method of claim 3 further comprising storing the news articles in a computer server.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein measuring the count of news articles further comprises querying the server.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein querying the server comprises the use of a preprogrammed query engine.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the subjects comprise one or more from the group comprising company names, stock ticker symbols, people, products, and other topics of interest.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising purging news articles stored in the computer server.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein the purging is conducted on the basis of the time period that the news articles were stored.

10. The method of claim 8 wherein purging is conducted on the basis of the subject matter of the news articles.

11. The method of claim 1 further comprising tagging the news articles by analyzing and coding the articles.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the tagging is automated.

13. The method of claim 1 further comprising calculating a frequency of news articles for the subject over the recent time period from the count of news articles for the subject over the recent time period.

14. The method of claim 1 further comprising analyzing previous counts for a period of seasonality.

15. The method of claim 14 , further comprising storing the period of seasonality.

16. The method of claim 14 further comprising comparing the counts and frequencies of the recent time period to the counts and frequencies of the previous time period using the period of seasonality.

17. The method of claim 1 further comprising calculating a weighted average of the count of news articles of the recent time period and of the count of news articles of the previous time period.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein calculating the weighted average of the given time period includes finding the logarithmic values of the frequency of news articles related to the subject for a selected time period including the recent time period and for a previous time period not including the recent time period, and comparing the logarithmic values.

19. The method of claim 17 further comprising calculating the logarithmic value of a first time period including both the recent time period and a portion of the previous time period, and calculating the logarithmic value of a second time period including both the portion of the previous time period of the first time period and a previous period of equal duration to the recent period, and comparing the logarithmic values of the first and second time periods as rolling averages.

20. The method of claim 17 further comprising calculating the logarithmic value of a first time period including both the recent time period and a portion of the immediately previous time period, and calculating the logarithmic value of a second time period including both the portion of the immediately previous time period and a portion of the previous period of unequal duration to the recent period, and comparing the logarithmic values of the first and second time periods.

21. The method of claim 2 further comprising assessing the counts and frequencies stored in the database to construct historical statistics.

22. The method of claim 2 further comprising assessing the counts and frequencies stored in the database to construct forecast scenarios.

23. The method of claim 1 further comprising determining changes in the count of news articles related to multiple subjects over a given time period.

24. The method of claim 1 further comprising determining changes in interest of multiple subjects over multiple time periods.

25. A system for determining changes in the count of news articles related to a subject over a recent time period, the system comprising:

a counter for measuring a count of news articles for the subject produced by a present news source configuration over the recent time period;

a comparator for determining a reconfiguration factor to account for changes between the present news source configuration and a previous news source configuration, wherein determining the reconfiguration factor further includes dividing the count of news articles for all subjects over the recent time period by the count of news articles for all subjects over at least one prior time period of equal duration;

a processor for applying the reconfiguration factor to a count of news articles for the subject for a previous time period to obtain a new count;

a comparator for comparing the count of news articles for the subject over the recent time period against the new count of news articles for the subject for a previous time period; and

a report for signaling when the comparison yields a difference greater than predetermined amount.