Techniques for designing an awareness engine that organizes and serves popularly discussed and viral online content in response to user search queries. In an aspect, quality online content is identified by analyzing posts by users of a social network over specific time periods. For each item of quality online content identified, a virality score is calculated, and a social signature is constructed. The social signature can be constructed from the content itself, as well as from posts referencing the content. Based on this processing, relevant quality online content having the highest virality scores may be retrieved and served in response to user queries. Further techniques are provided for designing a user interface for the awareness engine.