The Spread of News
Two of the biggest stories during the last two week were Miley Cyrus' performance at the MTV Video Music Awards and the ongoing strife in Syria. We used Facebook's Keyword Insights API, announced today, to see how these two very different types of stories made their way in different age groups and genders. BuzzFeed is one of a handful of news organizations selected for early access to the API.
The VMAs drew much more conversation than Syria overall.

Youngsters immediately took to their keyboards after Miley Cyrus performed at the VMAs.

And the kids talked more than the grown-ups about everything.

But the conversations about Syria swayed toward the over-35 crowd.

...despite it taking them a while to catch on.

Young people really cared about "syria," though, until they felt they had all the information.

And they only talk about "obama" when he's on TV.

Guys had a lot to say about Syria, while girls talked about the VMAs.

But males took longer to stop talking about twerking.
