Kos Info, news aggregation platform

“I am incredibly proud of the platform we have developed. The platform has become an essential tool for both journalists and the general public, providing a comprehensive overview of news from Kosovo's Serbian-language media in one convenient location.”

- Jovana Radosavljević - Executive Director of New Social Initiative

Story

Code Bears, in cooperation with W3 Lab, undertook a project to develop a comprehensive web and mobile application for New Social Initiative - NSI. The aim was to create a centralized platform that aggregated news from various sources in Kosovo, offering a user-friendly interface for accessing news summaries. Through effective teamwork and strategic solutions, we successfully delivered the desired solution, meeting the client's expectations.

Client's Background

Kos Info is a media platform operating in Kosovo, providing news and information to its audience. The Kos-info.net platform has been developed with the aim of providing support to credible, professional, small editorial teams of local media reporting in the Serbian language. Recognizing the growing demand for news platforms, NSI approached Code Bears to develop a web and mobile application that would aggregate news from various Kosovo sources and provide an engaging user experience.

Goal and Challenges

The primary goal of the project was to create a unified platform for news aggregation, enabling users to access news summaries from multiple sources in Kosovo. However, several challenges emerged during the project:

1. Aggregating Kosovo news sources: Access to all news sources was restricted, necessitating a solution to aggregate news from available sources onto a single platform.
2. Responsive web and mobile application: The platform needed to be accessible and visually appealing on both web and mobile devices.
3. Automation: Automating the system was essential to ensure seamless functionality and minimize manual intervention.

Solution

Code Bears devised a comprehensive solution to address the client's requirements and overcome the challenges:

The project involved two teams - Code Bears and W3 Lab. Code Bears focused on backend development, bot creation, web application development, and mobile app development. W3 Lab handled logo design, web application design, and static page creation.

The teams collaborated to develop an aesthetically pleasing design, incorporating both Light and Dark modes to enhance user experience.

A bot was developed to collect news articles from various websites, which were then sent to the backend for analysis, modification, and storage in an appropriate database format. The frontend and mobile app retrieved data from the backend and presented it to users in a user-friendly manner.

Backend Responsibilities: The backend component ensured proper storage and organization of news articles in the database, eliminated duplicate entries, flagged similar or republished articles, provided filtering and search functionalities, and tracked article views.

The frontend was built using React.js, offering features such as saving articles for later reading, infinite scrolling, modern loading animations, excellent performance, and responsiveness.

The mobile app, developed using React Native, offered a functional user interface, categorized news filtering, a "Most Read" news slider, push notification support, and exceptional speed and security.

Results

The collaboration between Code Bears, W3 Lab, and NSI yielded remarkable results and success.

The application effectively aggregated news from various sources in Kosovo, providing users with a centralized platform for accessing news summaries.

The web and mobile application offered intuitive and responsive interfaces, allowing users to navigate and consume news seamlessly.

The implementation of automation, including the bot for news collection and backend processes, ensured efficient and timely publication of news articles on the Kos Info platform.

The Light and Dark modes, along with features such as article saving, infinite scrolling, and rapid loading times, contributed to an engaging and satisfying user experience.