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by epoch_100 2341 days ago
Props to OP for launching, it looks like this tool has some real potential. I think low-cost web monitoring is a great idea and caters to what is otherwise an under-served market.

...which is why I've been building a similar tool [0] that's currently in private beta. So a bit of a plug: if anyone is looking for an alternative or just wants to try something different, feel free to send me a message. Contact info is in my profile.

And if anyone from Brandchirps wants to chat about this market and our respective projects, please get in touch. I sent you all a message and would love to talk.

[0] It's not public yet, but here are some screenshots to give you a sense of the similarities+differences between these tools: https://imgur.com/a/Sxpt2An
2 comments
ksahin 2341 days ago
Are you using an open-source web crawler like Stormcrawler / Apache Nutch or are you using Google queries as others suggested?
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epoch_100 2341 days ago
No Google queries, but also only very limited web crawling (i.e. _only_ to fill in gaps for Reddit and HN). There are a plethora of freely available archives of web content released almost hourly, so it's possible to scan a large slice of the web without too much resource expenditure. Feel free to message me for more technical info, happy to share whatever.

Here's the Rust library I built that powers the core of my project, if it's any help: https://github.com/milesmcc/ieql

Relatedly, because I feel like my tool relies so much on open-source software and public archives, I give 10% of my service's revenue to various open source projects. Tools like these are only possible at this price point if they're built on the shoulders of giants (i.e. tons of open source software and publicly available web archives).

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ksahin 2341 days ago
What public available web archive are you referring to? I know CommonCrawl but it's a monthly archive.
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epoch_100 2341 days ago
CommonCrawl is monthly, but they also release several news archives daily (and the news archives contain a surprising amount of content). Plus, there are lots and lots of RSS feed archives floating around.
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domlebo70 2341 days ago
Odd question, but what CSS/ui framework is that if any?

Edit: Appears to be Bulma

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epoch_100 2341 days ago
Yes, it's Bulma :)
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