Quick Overview

1:20 min read

Memeytabs is a production-ready application deployed to the Chromium web store.
The extension is designed to provide a unique user experience by breaking up the monotony of social media's endless scrolling into smaller, more manageable chunks. Only the most relevant and highly-engaged posts are presented to users throughout the day when they open a new tab.
Development process

TL;DR
Memeytabs must be designed with performance in mind. Posts must load quickly and efficiently before users can deviate from the new tab page.
Memeytabs has a global reach, with users located in a wide range of regions, including the UAE, Hong Kong, and America. As such, it must be optimized for low latency in every region.
Memeytabs currently lacks a direct monetization strategy, which presents a unique challenge. With no revenue stream, server costs must be kept to a minimum.
- This means traditional solutions, such as renting servers across every region or utilizing always-on instances to avoid cold starts and achieve low latency, are not financially viable.
As Memeytabs continues to grow, it is important to ensure that the Reddit API is not over-queried in order to maintain optimal performance.

Design Deets
Utilizing an intermediary Cloudflare cache layer significantly reduces requests to the origin server, consistently decreasing cost and response times from 2 to 0.2 seconds across all regions.
The architecture enables a single server to operate in America with minimal instances, resulting in virtually no server costs and low latency in all regions. Additionally, it also minimizes the chances of a server overload when MemeyTabs scales, thereby tightening operational expenses.