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Techmeme Scraper

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Techmeme Scraper

Techmeme Scraper

Scrapes the Techmeme homepage and returns each ranked story as a flat row with its headline, URL, author, publication, editorial excerpt, and related coverage links.

Pricing

from $19.00 / 1,000 results

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ParseForge

ParseForge

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2

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1

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12 days ago

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Techmeme Scraper

Scrape the Techmeme homepage for ranked tech news stories, headlines, and editorial context. Each story includes its author, publication, excerpt, and related coverage links. No API key required. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

Techmeme's algorithmically curated front page is the tech industry's daily briefing, but there is no public API to access its ranked story list. This Actor reads the homepage directly and returns every headline, the editorial excerpt, the author and publication, and the cluster of related coverage links, all in a flat, structured row.

Who uses itWhat they scrape Techmeme for
PR professionalsMonitor which tech stories and outlets are leading the daily news cycle.
Market analystsTrack which companies and topics are dominating tech media attention.
Content curatorsBuild automated daily newsletters or link roundups from the top tech stories.
Competitive intelligence teamsIdentify which competitor announcements are breaking through to the top of the news agenda.

What it does

This Actor collects the current ranked stories from the Techmeme homepage and returns each one as a flat row with its headline, URL, author, publication, excerpt, and related links.

  • ๐Ÿ“ฐ Ranked story list: The exact order and prominence of stories as they appear on the Techmeme homepage.
  • โœ๏ธ Editorial context: The human-written excerpt that summarizes why a story matters, plus the author and publication name.
  • ๐Ÿ”— Related coverage cluster: All the linked articles and commentary that Techmeme groups under each main story.
  • โš™๏ธ Simple volume control: Set a maximum number of stories to fetch, from a quick preview up to a full scrape.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with Techmeme data

๐Ÿ“ˆ Track daily tech media narratives.

A communications lead scrapes Techmeme each morning to see which stories and outlets are setting the day's agenda, then adjusts their pitching strategy.

๐Ÿ“ฐ Build an automated tech roundup.

A newsletter writer runs the Actor on a schedule, pulls the top headlines and excerpts, and feeds them into a daily email template.

๐Ÿ” Monitor competitor media presence.

A competitive analyst scrapes the homepage daily and filters for mentions of rival companies to measure share of voice in elite tech media.

๐Ÿ“Š Feed a media intelligence dashboard.

A data engineer pipes the ranked story list into a BI tool to visualize trending topics, authors, and publications over time.

Why choose this scraper

What you get
No API key or registrationReads the public Techmeme homepage, so you never deal with authentication or rate-limit headaches.
Fixed, predictable schemaEvery story arrives with the same fields, making it easy to pipe into a database, spreadsheet, or dashboard.
Editorial signal includedYou get the human-curated excerpt and the related-links cluster, not a bare headline list.

How it compares

This Actor and the Techmeme News Scraper both extract stories from the Techmeme homepage. The table below compares the capabilities each listing describes.

FeatureParseForgeTechmeme News Scraper
Ranked story list from homepageYesYes
Editorial excerpt textYesYes
Author and publication nameYesYes
Related coverage cluster linksYesYes
Configurable max items per runYes, up to 1,000,000Not listed
Free preview tierYes, up to 10 itemsNot listed

Configure the run

Drive the Actor by setting a maximum number of stories to return, from a small preview up to the full homepage. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
"maxItems": 10
}

A larger pull:

{
"maxItems": 200
}

Pricing

Pay-per-result: $0.021 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

Results collectedApproximate cost
100 results$2.10
1,000 results$21.00
10,000 results$210.00

New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

Run it

  1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
  2. Open the Techmeme Scraper.
  3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
  4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to Techmeme through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

$claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/techmeme-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

Troubleshooting

Why am I getting no results?

Check that the Techmeme homepage is reachable from your browser. If the site layout has changed, the Actor may need an update. Try reducing maxItems to a small number first.

The Actor returns fewer stories than I set in maxItems.

The Actor can only return the stories that are present on the homepage at the time of the run. If the page shows 30 stories, setting maxItems to 100 will still return only those 30.

Some fields are empty in my results.

Not every Techmeme story has an author, publication, or excerpt. Empty fields mean that information was not present on the page for that particular story.

The Actor run fails with a timeout.

The Techmeme page may have been slow to respond. Increase the run timeout in the Actor's advanced settings and try again.

I hit the free-user limit of 10 items. How do I get more?

Upgrade to a paid Apify plan. Once on a paid plan, you can set maxItems to any value up to 1,000,000.

FAQ

QuestionAnswer
Does this scrape the entire Techmeme site or the homepage?It scrapes the main Techmeme homepage, which lists the current top stories. It does not crawl historical archives or sub-pages.
Do I need a Techmeme account or API key?No. The Actor reads the public homepage, so no login, account, or API key is required.
What data fields does each story row contain?Each row includes the headline, story URL, author name, publication name, the editorial excerpt, and a list of related coverage links.
How often is the Techmeme homepage updated?Techmeme updates continuously throughout the day. Run the Actor on a schedule to capture the latest story ranking each time.
Can I filter stories by topic or keyword?The Actor returns the ranked list as it appears. You can filter the results after the run in your dataset using any tool that reads CSV or JSON.
Is there a limit to how many stories I can scrape?Free users can fetch up to 10 stories as a preview. Paid Apify users can set a higher maximum, up to 1,000,000, though the homepage typically shows fewer.
Does this Actor handle Techmeme's 'river' view or only the main page?It targets the main curated homepage. The river view is a different page and is not included in the current version.
What output formats are supported?You can export your results to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML from the Apify dataset tab.
Can I run this on a schedule?Yes. You can set up a recurring schedule in Apify, such as every hour or every morning, to capture the homepage at regular intervals.

Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.

๐Ÿ†˜ Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

โš ๏ธ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Techmeme. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.