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The only non-standard challenge presented by this project is the need to develop screen-scraping regular expressions for individual online communities that are
by jlees 17y ago
The only non-standard challenge presented by this project is the need to develop screen-scraping regular expressions for individual online communities that are run on custom software.
My spider-senses are tingling. I don't like the sound of this one bit.
I do like the sound of aggregated community, though, but here's an interesting question: how many communities is the average real person part of, these days? Aren't half of them on Facebook now? Plus, doesn't Google Wave.. sort of.. provide an alternative? Or maybe that could be the ultimate destination, the viewer if you will, on this stream of aggregation.
- DanielBMarkham 17y agoA spider, in my opinion, is a tool that some service uses to collect information from other sites to repackage and sell on their site. If I'm a user of several sites, and I automate my own browser to collect just information of relevance to me and put it on my own site/app/whatever, then that's simply a matter of the presentation of material, not a business in it's own right. Or another way to look at it is -- supposed I rewrote a browser to check all social sites and display the web pages in an aggregated format for the user. That's not creating competition, that's arranging data to make it more consumable, which is what the web is supposed to be about. I know I'm a member of half a dozen sites, most of which I don't visit very much because of the inconvenience. With some kind of aggregator, I could participate easily in many more networks and broaden my social reach, which is a benefit.
- mrshoe 17y agoI'm starting to see the beginnings of an new trend here. Since Google Wave does everything and replaces everything on the internet, I have a feeling that all new startups and business ideas will garner the response, "Doesn't Google Wave do this already?"