1. A computer-implemented method for identifying story trends, the method comprising: identifying a set of words in a fixed size data stream based on a subword cache; electronically determining at least one story trend associated with the set of words and electronically generating a story hash associated with the set of words; storing the story hash in a story trend cache and updating the story trend cache according to the story hash; and retrieving one or more popular story topics according to the story trend cache for presentation to a user.