Introducing Memetracker

<em>BTW, I'm not sure what's expected here. If what I've submitted is wrong, please send some example articles and I'll rework things.</em> Memetracker is an exciting new module being written as part of Google Summer of Code. The module can be used to build news aggregator sites similar to <a href="http://techmeme">Techmeme</a> and <a href="http://news.google.com">Google News</a> and also can serve as an excellent conversation tracker within online communities. <strong>Agenda</strong> * What is a memetracker? * Why would I want a memetracker? * How to integrate memetracker into my Drupal site? * Future direction for Memetracker <strong>High level overview of Memetracking technology:</strong> Memetrackers try to find and display the most interesting topics of discussion (memes) of the day. A memetracker can be thought of as a smart aggregator. An aggregator is software like Drupal Planet or PlanetPlanet that aggregates related content from many sources to display in a central location. But current aggregators are dumb. The dumb aggregator knows no better than to pull in new content and order it chronologically. A memetracker is a smart aggregator. It also knows how to pull in new content as a dumb aggregator but it's much smarter about how it displays the content. It can analyze the text of the content and know which authors are talking about the same topic and then group these together. In addition to grouping articles on the same topic, the smart aggregator can also learn what topics and authors are most interesting to members of the community and display those first. Smart aggregators such as Memetracker use a variety of processes both automated and social to identify the most interesting memes. In today's almost overwhelming informational abundance, smart aggregators are becoming an essential tool for individuals and organizations working in knowledge.