Techmeme is a

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, scien ...

news aggregator In computing, a news aggregator, also termed a feed aggregator, feed reader, news reader, RSS reader or simply an aggregator, is client software or a web application that aggregates syndicated web content such as online newspapers, blogs, ...

. The website has been described as "a one-page, aggregated, filtered, archiveable summary in near real-time of what is new and generating conversation".

Overview

Gabe Rivera Gabriel Rivera (April 7, 1961 – July 16, 2018), nicknamed "Señor Sack", was an American football nose tackle in the National Football League (NFL). Rivera played college football for Texas Tech where he earned All-American honors in 1982. ...

was a compiler software engineer at

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 ser ...

before launching tech.memeorandum on September 12, 2005. After working on tech.memeorandum for a year, it was renamed to Techmeme. The website is funded entirely by Rivera, and has no investors.

Website

Techmeme uses an

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing ...

to order stories by importance, which depends on several factors that include the number of links to the story's web page and how old the story is. "Anti-gaming" efforts have been made to lower the effect that a high number of links can have on a story if the links were created in a short period of time, or by a small number of people. The website has a Techmeme Sponsors Program which accepts payment in exchange for a dedicated section for sponsors. A

search engine A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...

was added to the website on May 20, 2008, which searches all archived stories that have appeared on the website as a full headline. Two weeks later, a "prospective search feature" was added to Techmeme, which allows users to subscribe to future search results and receive notifications when a headline matches their search pattern. The team and technology behind Techmeme also powers media news aggregator Mediagazer, political aggregation site Memeorandum, baseball aggregation site Ballbug, and celebrity gossip aggregator WeSmirch.

Technology

Techmeme works by scraping news websites and

blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in Reverse ...

s, and then compiles a list of links to the most popular technology-related news of the day, which is continuously updated. The stories selected are chosen primarily by an automated process. The service is fed a list of websites, and then it finds other websites that are similar to these to find similar news stories and to keep the focus on technology news. Once the website finds sources that provide a good source of technology news, they are added to Techmeme's database so that it can track them for future updates. In December 2008, the original automated process was supplemented by two human editors—Megan McCarthy and Omer Horvitz—who manage the mix of headlines. Three additional editors were added in November 2009, Rich DeMuro, Lidija Davis and Mahendra Palsule. Rivera has suggested that website owners get linked to by other web pages when possible because it increases the chances that Techmeme will find their website.

References

External links

*{{official website, http://www.techmeme.com News aggregators American technology news websites Internet memes Internet properties established in 2005

Overview

Website

Technology

References

Further reading

External links