MUMBAI: UK pubcaster BBC News website has announced the launch of its new Most Popular Now page for users. On the page, site users can find information about which stories are proving most popular or interesting to their fellow readers.

For the first time, visitors to the site can now see which news stories are read most, which stories are forwarded to friends most and which video clips are being watched most - minute-by-minute throughout the day.

BBC News Interactive head Pete Clifton says, "This is a fascinating new service for our millions of readers – they will be able to see exactly what people are reading and watching in any part of the world in real-time. We have a huge amount of information about our traffic and it makes sense that we share it with the audience."

On the Most Popular Now page BBC News website readers will find a world map with a list of the ten most popular stories read by users of the site across the world – data all generated within seconds of the actual pages being read.

To find out what the most popular stories are around the globe, readers simply click on the area of the world they want to know about and the list of top stories automatically sweeps into the top ten for that region.

As a result, people can compare the stories that come top with European readers with those in the US, Africa, Asia and elsewhere. Other features include a live news traffic monitor which measures news consumption and shows whether it is a quieter or busier day than average, and an archive of text and audio video clips.

Click on the 'Most popular - Day so far' tab and users can see how the popularity of stories develops and changes hour-by-hour throughout the day. Readers will be able to find the information via links on the front page and on the right hand side of every story on the site.