This is kinda cool.

Apparently Bit.ly has been crawling every URL its shorten for “virality” (I guess that’s what they were doing all this time) in an attempt to provide a snapshot of content that’s trending and interestingly enough content that’s going to trend through user search.

“Instead of pagerank we’re using a different filter — for any given search query, we display the stories that we predict will get the most attention over the next 24 hours. Then we use bitly’s analytics to refine our predictions in realtime. Our search technology is based on the most valuable measure of engagement: the click.”

As the first public part of its realtime social search initiative, the company is rolling out a sentiment analysis system that it will be offering to Enterprise users who want to beta test.

The company’s blog post holds that unlike a traditional clipping or trending engine what ever this will be will basically predict the future, as an “early-warning system” alerting you to “swings” in what people are saying about your brand, for example.