Meerkat Overview

1
Meerkat Overview

• David Robb
• CSCI 7818 Topics in Software Engineering
• Fall 2001

2
Overview

• Web-based syndicated content reader
• Focus on up-to-date technical news
• Stories sorted by update time
• Stories filtered by Category/Channel or search
  criteria
• Rich Site Summary (RSS) based
• Relevant news in a single location

3
Technical Specifications

• Perl backend
• PHP frontend
• Apache web server
• MySQL database

4
Behind the Scenes Features

• Maintains list of channels
• Checks channel RSS file every hour to pull new
  stories
• Pulls new technology related channels from
  aggregators

5
Registration of Channel

• Meerkat doesnt have a registration system
  currently
• Register channel through aggregator
• xmlTree directory of content
• Aggregator.Userland.com

6
Front End Features

• Profiles/Mobs
• Use to create groups and store articles according
  to relevance
• Must be a registered user
• Categories/Channels
• Different groups of articles
• Can list articles you want by selecting desired
  category and clicking refresh button
• Not all Categories/Channels have current news

7
Front End Features (continued)

• Search For
• Keyword search of title and description fields
• Can change field to search by using drop down
  menu
• Show Me
• Select time frame of stories you want to see
• From one hour to all stories ever posted
• Displays 50 stories per page. Use lt and gt to
  move between pages

8
Front End Features (continued)

• Story
• Displayed from newest to oldest
• Title in bold with description underneath
• Click on title to open a new window and read the
  full story from the sources website
• Same window is used to read each story

9
Front End Features (continued)

• Action
• Icons located to the left of the story
  description
• Click on the globe to open a new window and
  perform a web-based search on the title and key
  words in a story
• Click on the magnifying glass to open a new
  window and search the sources website for
  information similar to this story
• Click on the ring of dots to add a story to your
  Mobs group

10
Front End Features (continued)

• Source
• Name of the channel in which the story appears
• Click on the source to view all stories from the
  same source
• Category
• Stories are categorized based on story content
• Date
• Date Meerkat first noticed the story and entered
  it into its database

11
Conclusions

• Useful aid for information retrieval
• Provides timely, relevant information quickly
• Provides easy web search
• Doesnt provide end to end path for information,
  but is a good starting point