Aggregater

Aggregater is a software system that collects data or content from multiple sources, normalizes the material, and presents it through a unified interface, dataset, or API. The term is used across fields such as news media, e-commerce, analytics, and social platforms to describe components that consolidate disparate sources into a single view.

Typical architecture includes source connectors or adapters to retrieve data, a normalization and deduplication layer to unify schemas and remove duplicates, a storage or indexing layer for efficient retrieval, and an exposure layer that serves data to applications or users (APIs, dashboards, or feeds). Data provenance and versioning are often maintained to track source and transformation history.

Aggregaters can be categorized by domain: content aggregaters gather articles, videos, or posts; price or product aggregaters compare items across vendors; data aggregaters compile sensor, financial, or scientific data; and social media aggregaters consolidate posts, metrics, or conversations from multiple networks.

Applications include news feeds, price comparison engines, and analytics dashboards. Benefits include broader coverage, consistent formatting, and automation of data collection. Challenges include licensing and attribution, copyright concerns, data quality and deduplication, latency and freshness, schema evolution, scalability, and privacy compliance.

Historically, aggregation emerged with web portals and RSS-based feeds, evolving into API-driven and real-time systems. Recent trends include AI-assisted normalization, adaptive deduplication, and streaming aggregation.

See also: aggregation, content aggregator, data integration.