Watching how the music spreads

British indie pop band The xx has partnered with Microsoft to track and visualize how music from its new album was shared online.

  The band established a site for its recent album, Coexist, that allows visitors to not only stream the album, but explicitly allows the stream to be shared via Facebook, Twitter, and email.  Each shared stream is being tracked, and is visualized on a map that displays how the streams are shared by listeners.
  The pic to the side is a screen capture of the animated map, which continues to track sharing since the album was first made available to a single fan on September 3rd, 2012.
  It also gives listeners something to watch and play with as they listen to the album.

  This approach could bring a new dimension to music marketing.

Sources -  Stunning Visualization Shows How The xx's New Album Went Viral, Mashable Entertainment
The xx's Coexist streaming site