Notes, links and conversation

There are several screen-scraping services out there, but Dapper is one that’s both versatile and visual. With a bit of trial and error, everyone can transform html web pages (or more precisely: changes in web pages) into email notifications, a startpage widget, RSS or another syndication format. Take this example:

Jan, who I happen to know as the guy who wants to be the first “Jan” in Google, has this blog where he writes about a variety of subjects… I would like to subscribe to his Ruby postings, but there’s no tag feed. I am sure he would be able to come up with one if I asked him, but with Dapper, it took only 4 minutes to create an RSS feed from the tag page:

The screencast is really simple and straightforward and bypasses most of the features - my only goal was tho create a simple “Dapp” with this feed as a result.

More on Dapper

If it makes you curious, and you want to learn more on Dapper, have a look at the more comprehensive introductory demo, parameterizable Dapps or refining your Dapps. Browse the Dapps published by other users. More Dapper coverage on Techcrunch, Mashable and Readwriteweb.

Other Screen scraping services

From my del.icio.us selection:

1. Feed43 (Feed For Free) : Convert any web page to news feed on the fly

   “converts free-form HTML or XML documents to valid RSS feeds by extracting snippets of text or HTML by means of applying search patterns, and then joining these snippets together using output templates to form user-friendly content of feed’s items. ” : search by patterns in the html

2. Feedity - RSS Web Feed
   Generator for Web Pages without Syndication

   “Another html to rss screenscraping service” : similar to Feed43

3. openkapow

   “Combination of 1. RoboMaker, a desktop visual scripting tool, with which you define screenscraping scripts. 2. OpenKapow, an online service where you can host and share your scripts as REST, RSS, ATOM or HTML services”: a more heavy-duty editing environment and hosting service for developers

4. Page2RSS - Create an RSS feed
   from any web site

   “It is a service that helps you monitor web sites that do not publish feeds. It
   will pull the updates from any site and deliver them right to your favorite
   RSS reader.”: produces an notification feed for any changes on a page

5. ChangeNotes.com - Monitor web site changes

6. WatchThatPage - Monitor web pages extract new information

   Two email notification services that monitor changes on your selected pages

If you know of other services, post them in the comments.

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This entry was posted in Syndication, Webdevelopment on Monday, May 14th, 2007 at 22:21 and tagged as: . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.