What is incoming?
A real-time hype index for upcoming releases — every movie, TV series, game, album, and book that's about to drop, ranked by how much attention it's actually getting. Not how much marketing it has, not what critics will think. What people are reading, searching, and talking about right now.
Most release calendars sort by date. That tells you when something comes out, but not which of the fifty things releasing this Friday you should care about. Incoming flips that — sort by hype, see velocity, find the rising title before the mainstream press notices.
How the hype score works
The score is a percentile — 0 to 100 — within each category. 80+ is red hot, 60–79 is hot, 40–59 is warm, below 40 is quiet. The number is relative to the rest of the catalogue, not an absolute quality rating.
It blends a few signals:
- Wikipedia pageviews · 90% (Phase 1)
- How many people are reading the title's Wikipedia page in the last 7 days. Strong signal for cultural attention — researched by people who care, not driven by ad campaigns.
- Source popularity · 10% (baseline)
- TMDb / RAWG / MusicBrainz / OpenLibrary popularity. A baseline that prevents brand-new entries with no Wikipedia history from sitting at zero forever.
- Reddit · YouTube · Google Trends · Phase 2 (in progress)
- Subreddit mention rate, trailer view trajectory, and search-trend velocity. Together they catch the spike from a teaser drop or a leaked screenshot — moments Wikipedia is too slow for. Wiring up; weights will rebalance to roughly Wikipedia 40% · Reddit 25% · YouTube 25% · Trends 10%.
Scores recompute hourly from the latest signals. Big moves show up on /trending (rising 24h / 7d). The full leaderboard lives at /hype.
Where the data comes from
Every entity is ingested daily from a primary source, then enriched with credits + images on a secondary pass. We never invent metadata.
- Movies + TV — TMDb (themoviedb.org). Title, release date, poster, cast + crew, keywords, vote_average.
- Games — RAWG (rawg.io). Plus Steam (price, review summary) for affiliate links.
- Music — MusicBrainz release-groups + Cover Art Archive.
- Books — OpenLibrary works. Plus Amazon for affiliate links.
- Editorial copy — short blurbs and long-form previews are drafted by Incoming Editorial, grounded strictly in the source data above and reviewed before publication. We don't invent dates, credits, or platforms. Editor overrides win against any later automated update.
Affiliate links (Steam · Amazon · Fandango via CJ) are flagged as such and never change ranking. We earn a commission on purchases through them.
What we don't do
- No tracking cookies. Analytics is Plausible — cookieless, GDPR-safe, no consent banner needed.
- No accounts required. Save releases to your watchlist; the list lives in your browser, not on our servers.
- No fabricated reviews. Every editorial paragraph is grounded in the structured data we publish next to it; we'd rather print a shorter preview than invent context that isn't there.
- No release-date speculation. If TMDb says TBA, we say TBA. We never make up dates to fill the calendar.
Frequently asked questions
What exactly is Incoming?
Incoming is a release calendar that tracks upcoming movies, TV series, video games, music albums, and books — ranked by audience attention rather than release date. The hype score (0–100) is a real-time percentile built from Wikipedia pageviews, social signals, and source popularity data. It shows what people are actually paying attention to, not what studios and publishers want you to notice.
How is the hype score calculated?
The current Phase 1 model blends Wikipedia pageviews (90% weight) — which capture genuine research interest rather than paid promotion — with a baseline popularity score from the source database (TMDb, RAWG, MusicBrainz, or OpenLibrary) to prevent brand-new entries from sitting at zero while they accumulate history. Phase 2 will add Reddit activity, YouTube trailer trajectory, and Google Trends velocity, bringing Wikipedia down to roughly 40% of the total weight.
Does Incoming track every release?
Incoming tracks every confirmed upcoming release available in its source databases: movies and TV series from The Movie Database (TMDb), games from RAWG, music from MusicBrainz, and books from Open Library. Data is ingested daily at 03:00 UTC. Unconfirmed titles, rumoured releases, and speculative dates are excluded — if the source says TBA, Incoming says TBA.
How often does the data update?
Hype scores recompute hourly from the latest Wikipedia pageview data and social signals. New releases are ingested once daily at 03:00 UTC. When a major title drops a trailer or generates a surge of cultural attention, its hype score climbs within the same hour. The /trending page shows the biggest movers over the past 24 hours and 7 days.
Is Incoming free?
Yes — fully free, no account required. Browse releases, view hype scores, and use the release calendar without signing up. RSS feeds are available for every category so you can follow upcoming releases in any feed reader. A weekly newsletter with hype highlights is available via email subscription on the homepage.
How does Incoming make money?
Incoming includes affiliate links to Steam (games), Amazon (books), and Fandango via CJ Affiliate (movies). These links are always labelled as affiliate links on the page, and commissions never influence how releases are ranked, scored, or featured. Analytics runs on Plausible — cookieless and GDPR-compliant, no consent banner required.
What categories does Incoming cover?
Incoming tracks five categories: Movies (sourced from TMDb), TV Series (TMDb), Games (RAWG), Music — albums and EPs (MusicBrainz), and Books (Open Library). Each has its own listing page, calendar view, genre filters, and Hype Score ranking.
How do I save a release to my list?
Click the bookmark icon on any release card or entity page to add it to your personal watchlist. You need a free Incoming account to use the watchlist. Your saved list is available at /my/watchlist.
Can I get email alerts for new releases?
You can sign up for the Incoming newsletter to receive weekly roundups of upcoming releases with high Hype Scores. Per-release email alerts are planned for a future phase.
How do I report a missing release or wrong information?
Use the contact page to flag a missing title or incorrect metadata. For movie and TV data, the most reliable fix is updating the source record on TMDb directly — Incoming re-ingests from TMDb nightly, so corrections appear within 24 hours.
Does Incoming have an API?
Not publicly. Incoming is built on a Postgres database with a Next.js frontend. A public read API is on the long-term roadmap but not scheduled for current development.
About our content
Release descriptions, overviews, and FAQ answers on Incoming are drafted with the assistance of AI language models, grounded strictly in the structured metadata from our source databases (TMDb, RAWG, MusicBrainz, OpenLibrary). All AI-drafted content is reviewed by our editorial team before publication. We never invent release dates, cast credits, or platform availability — if the source data doesn't confirm it, we don't publish it.
Editorial curation — including weekly picks, trending spotlights, and category editorial — is overseen by Hellie and Chloe, editors at Incoming Editorial, Netlink Global Limited (Hong Kong).