Show HN: Monitorbook – Easily track anything on the web
monitorbook.com
Show HN: Monitorbook – Easily track anything on the web
1–10 of 56 posts
Re: Show HN: Monitorbook – Easily track anything on the web
#2So... what does it do? I don't wanna sign up to figure out, in more specific language, what exactly it tracks. Users? News? API calls?
Re: Show HN: Monitorbook – Easily track anything on the web
#3Has there been work after RSS to improve pub/sub protocols for websites to notify customers of changes/deltas, without the need for wholesale scraping?
Re: Show HN: Monitorbook – Easily track anything on the web
#4So... what does it do? I don't wanna sign up to figure out, in more specific language, what exactly it tracks. Users? News? API calls?
The front page has an explanatory video. It looks like you can select a part of a webpage and it will produce alerts whenever that section changes by repeatedly polling the website (e.g., the price of a product on Amazon, like the video shows).
Re: Show HN: Monitorbook – Easily track anything on the web
#5So... what does it do? I don't wanna sign up to figure out, in more specific language, what exactly it tracks. Users? News? API calls?
I found the 57s video on the front page to be quite instructive:
it's a bookmarklet that identifies some portion of the screen to scrape (a numerical value in the example), and tracks it over time, allowing you to set alerts at thresholds (presumably so you can buy at a favourable price)
Re: Show HN: Monitorbook – Easily track anything on the web
#6So... what does it do? I don't wanna sign up to figure out, in more specific language, what exactly it tracks. Users? News? API calls?
I'm in class and can't watch a video... would be nice to have it explained in text
Re: Show HN: Monitorbook – Easily track anything on the web
#7Sorry, my work pc doesn't have sound so I can't hear the actual video. Does this track sites other than Amazon, or is that just the demo? Also, is there an estimate on the pricing for the premium service?
Overall, I think it looks pretty clean. But I would probably add just a bit more information on the main page. I see it's mostly in the video, but it would be nice to get pricing details, description of exactly what things you can track, etc..
Good job though :)
Re: Show HN: Monitorbook – Easily track anything on the web
#8Here's a business case for how this could be useful and why I'm going to try it.
I operate a string of ~60 local businesses that have physical storefronts.
On average each store has 5 local competitors.
Our customers are VERY price sensitive - they will almost always call the "lowest price" guy in the area first.
As a result we currently have a duct-tape system to monitor competitor pricing and tweak ours as fast as possible.
MonitorBook would be a potentially much simpler mechanism to orchestrate this.
If the MB team is reading this drop me a line and we'd be a potentially great case study / early adopter.
Things that would have to work to make this usable long-term:
a) API so we could pull this data into our pricing algo.
b) Clear error-checking confidence - if a site we're monitoring changes their code / display and we miss it, we'd have to go back to duct-tape which is sloppy and labor intensive, but reliable.
Re: Show HN: Monitorbook – Easily track anything on the web
#9I had something like this on my back burner for years called Sitebeagle. It's command-line only. Glad these guys took the initiative to build something way more robust. It'll be great for tracking 1 day deals, seeing if somebody's logged in somewhere, and getting alerts for when band tickets go on sale. The possibilities are endless.
Re: Show HN: Monitorbook – Easily track anything on the web
#10Why do I have to create a new account for this site? I have Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc; consider using one of those site and OAuth to provide a more frictionless experience for first-time users, especially considering your site requires me to come back X days later to really see it work. My $0.02...