How Contren Measures a Trend (and What It Won't Pretend)
Where the numbers on every trend card come from, what each score means, and which data Contren does not have yet.
Every trend in Contren is re-measured on a schedule from public sources that anyone can check. Wikipedia page views show how many people are reading about a topic. Google News shows how much is being published about it. Hacker News shows discussion among technology audiences. For spiritual and cultural topics, where a technology forum says nothing useful, it is left out.
From these signals Contren calculates four scores from 0 to 100. Trend score is the overall strength of the topic. Momentum is how fast interest is changing week on week. Content gap is how much demand is left unmet by what has already been published. Competition is how crowded the topic already is.
A score is only rewritten when at least two independent sources answer. If one source is silent or unavailable, the previous reading is kept rather than replaced with a guess — and every trend page lists the signals behind its score.
Some data is not available yet, and Contren says so instead of filling the gap. Reddit refuses requests from data-centre servers, and YouTube and Instagram numbers need official API access that is still being set up. Until then, performance and competitor figures are ones you record yourself, and the app labels them that way.
- Scores come from public, checkable sources
- Two sources must agree before a score changes
- Every trend lists the signals behind it
- Missing data is shown as missing — never guessed
