It initially compiled the most-shared songs by up-and-coming artists, ranked by the volume of shares on Twitter in the United States over a seven-day period.
[4] It listed the fastest-accelerating artists of the week, across all major social music sites, statistically predicted to achieve future success.
The chart aimed to predict artists who were most likely to make their debut on the Billboard 200 chart within the next year, all based on a patented algorithm that looked at artists' growth on social media and streaming over the previous 90 days.
[7][8] The chart became permanently defunct as Pandora shut down Next Big Sound platform on November 1, 2021.
[11][12][13] Ranking is based on a formula incorporating streamed plays, page views and fans according to MySpace, as well as sources tracked by online aggregator Next Big Sound, including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm, iLike and Wikipedia, among others.
[21] The new chart "incorporates key metrics of music consumption, blending album and track sales, radio airplay, streaming and social media fan interaction to provide a weekly multi-dimensional ranking of artist popularity".