TapTalk

Built with Django, and hosted remotely on Heroku: http://tap-talk.herokuapp.com.

TapTalk is a plug-in for mobile webpages that sets people talking about what they have read. Users can now enjoy an enhanced news reading experience – by participating in conversations while having weigh-in from experts.

We wanted to solve the problem of millennial users who are increasingly skeptical and detached with the way news is presented, and create an intuitive and alternative platform for them to participate and create conversations.

Our plug-in allows users to comment on specific paragraphs of a news article, as well as filter out toxic comments to reduce clutter. A separate tab for experts in the related field can value-add and help the reader gain further insights on the issue discussed in the article.

Demo

Watch our demo here.

Local Installation

Download the project on GitHub.
Make sure that Python 3 is installed on your machine.
If the project's dependencies have not been installed, do so by double-clicking install_dependencies.bat.
Run the server by double-clicking run.bat. If there is an error, try editing the file by changing py to python.

The server should now be running on http://127.0.0.1/8000.

Notes

The admin site can be accessed on http://127.0.0.1/8000/admin/ but requires an admin email and password.

A copy of config.py containing secret API keys is to be placed in the root directory for the authentication functionalities to work.

To get a copy of config.py and the admin email and password, feel free to contact the developers of this project.

Team Members

Journalists: Elizabeth Lee, Neo Rong Wei

Designers: Emma Cheuk Yan Wa, Minjee Cheon

Developers: Callista Chang, Toh Jian Hao

Acknowledgements

Tan Mae Lynn and Mugilan Rajasegeran from TODAYonline for their continuous support and feedback.

Jessica Tan and Joan Kelly for their guidance over the course of News Media Lab and Thummanapalli Nagaraju for his technical advice.

Our news mentors Kyle Malinda-White from 99.co and Rishad Patel and Alan Soon from the Splice Newsroom.

As well as our users for their time and support: