Junction 2016

Inspiration

A new spin on targeted ads. We wanted to see if we can use infromation that people publicly give out every day, over Twitter, to create an ad distribution platform that serves information relevant to users in a given location.

What it does

By exploiting Twitters API we are able to geather all Tweets in a given radius around a certain location. Using those we can find out what the poster of the tweets likes and show them targeted ads in their vicinity. We created a platform to distribute those adds around different location and find common interests amongst groups of people.

How I built it

With my own hands :D The backend that drives the platform is written in Ruby using the Ruby on Rails framework. While indivitual ads are standalone webpages written in JS, HTML and CSS.

Challenges I ran into

Getting all tweets in a certain radius around a location. Creating an algorithm that finds common interests amongst groups of people. Figuring out a versitile system for creating ads that can be easily distributed.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

Having lots of fun and meeting new interesting people while being able to create a working application.

What I learned

How to create distribution platforms. Some Finnish and some Russian.

What's next for "Seashell"

A data aggregation system which would allow a better insite into the preferences of citizens in certain areas.

How to run it

You have to have Docker installed on your machine. If you don't have it, follow this guide.

Go to the root of this project and run:

docker-compose up

This comand will pull all the necessary docker images, create isolated containers and install all the required dependencies in them. After that it will start the application. (If you see the message 'Server is running' then it's done).

Open your browser and to to localhost:3000/admin