GREEN FROG ranks stories by two independent algorithms, with NO social media signals or engagement metrics.
DEFINING NOW (What's Viral Right Now)
Stories accelerating fastest RIGHT NOW. Acceleration is the gatekeeper — without active, recent momentum, a story cannot rank here regardless of how big it is.
- Publication acceleration (50%) — Articles in the last 15 minutes count 3x; last 30 minutes count 2.5x; last hour counts 1.5x. Beyond 2 hours = zero contribution.
- Source credibility (20%) — Tier 1 sources carry more weight.
- Multi-source confirmation (20%) — More outlets = stronger signal.
- Geographic reach (10%) — Stories crossing regions rank higher.
- Gatekeeper: Stories with weak recent acceleration are crushed regardless of other factors. A 6-hour-old story with no new pickups can't appear here.
DOMINATING TODAY (What Defined the Day)
Stories with sustained, broad coverage over the full day. Duration is the gatekeeper — stories that just broke cannot rank here, no matter how many outlets cover them.
- Coverage duration (30%) — How many hours the story has been covered. Logarithmic curve rewards sustained stories.
- Multi-source confirmation (30%) — Breadth of independent coverage is the primary signal.
- Geographic reach (25%) — Stories spanning continents defined the world's day.
- Source credibility (15%) — Less weight here; sustained coverage matters more than who reported first.
- Gatekeeper: Stories under 30 minutes of coverage are nearly invisible; under 2 hours are penalized. Only proven stories rank here.
Source Tiers
Tier 1 (3.0x weight): Wire services and premier outlets — AP, Reuters, BBC, Guardian, etc.
Tier 2 (1.5x weight): Established national/regional — USA Today, CNBC, The Verge, etc.
Tier 3 (0.5x weight): Niche/local — Only counted with 2+ Tier 1/2 corroboration.
Story Clustering
Articles about the same event are grouped using title similarity analysis (Jaccard + bigram + named entity matching, 28% threshold). Scores represent the entire cluster, not any single article.
Column Exclusivity
The two columns are fully independent — every story appears in only one column. This ensures you get two genuinely different perspectives: what's happening right now vs. what defined the entire day.