Method and system for determining a popularity of online content

The invention relates to a method for determining a popularity of a content object of online content, comprising a plurality of content objects, stored in a content delivery network, comprising the steps of a) Determining relative interest values for at least one content object of the online content with regard to at least one other content object in at least one predetermined time-interval of a time period, b) Determining rate-of-change values of the relative interest values in the at least one time-interval, c) Calculating popularity values for the at least one content object in the at least one time-interval according to a energy function, the energy function being dependent of a first function and a second function, wherein the first function being a function of the determined rate-of-change values according to step b) and wherein the second function being a function of the determined relative interest values according to step a), d) Determining a trend popularity set with elements for content object behaviour based on a time-series of calculated popularity values for the at least one content object, and e) Determining the popularity of a new content object according to one of the elements of the determined trend popularity set. The invention also relates to a corresponding system and a use of the method and/or the system.