Microsoft Corp. launched Thursday a trend-tracking service called msnNow which tracks what people are talking about online by shifting through real-time topics across social media networks like Facebook and Twitter. Users can then see what topics are trending at the moment by looking at the site, accompanied by a few pithy comments from MSN's editorial staff about the topics.

The service is primarily aimed at younger users who are increasingly plugged into the Internet through their smartphones or tablets. It's this addiction to information that Microsoft wants to tap into.

"We're taking the hottest, socially trending conversations on the Web and surfacing them," said Bob Visse, general manager of MSN. "This is for that younger generation that doesn't spend more than five to 10 minutes at a time info-snacking. We're putting fuel on a conversation."

The new service uses algorithms created by Microsoft to search Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Bing and BreakingNews.com to see what topics are being shared by users in real-time. A team of 20 editors write 100-word summaries of the stories and post links. In some cases the editors will warn readers if the story has false information and they'll also edit out the most lurid and offensive content.

The service doesn't have an app for smartphones or tablets yet even though it's the perfect service for such devices. Users can still reach msnNOW on all mobile Web browsers and the service will have tools for users to share content on Facebook, Twitter and e-mail.

Although MSN doesn't have the same clout and traffic as Yahoo or Google, MSN believes its new service will be more effective because it relies on human editors to make the site more compelling than sites that just post links to trending topics. MSN.com remains one of the Internet's top visited sites with about 520 million users worldwide.

Although Facebook and Twitter have negotiated deals to make their data available to Microsoft's Bing search engine, msnNOW isn't relying on that information. Instead, Microsoft developed the service using the public information available on the social media sites.