WebGrabit
June 20th, 2004From the site:
“WebGrabit is challenging established RSS (Really Simple Syndication) as a means of effectively getting updated news and information feeds directly to users desktops.”
“RSS has recently gained a substantial following from people who want instant access to multiple sources of news and information. Widely available RSS readers allow users to access RSS feeds from thousands of content providers. However, RSS suffers from a number of serious limitations. Firstly, it requires the content provider to produce a special RSS file so that RSS readers can access the information. Thus there is additional work required for the content provider to make his or her information available in the RSS format. Since not all producers of content are likley to immediatly produce RSS feeds, there is a significant proportion of news and information not available through RSS. Secondly, since it is up to the content provider to decide what news or information is provided through RSS, as an RSS user you are limited to receiving only the news and information they chose to make available.”
“WebGrabit overcomes these limitiations because it is able to grab ANY content from ANY website and display it directly to your desktop. With WebGrabit you are not just limited to RSS published newsfeeds. For example, with WebGrabit can have a window to the pricing page of your competitor’s website, with WebGrabit automatically notifying you whan they change their pricing; or, you can link to the Employment Opportunities page of a prospective employer’s website, with WebGrabit notifying you automatically when new jobs are posted; you can even link to your favourite dating website, automatically receiving details of new canditates as they are posted.”
Very interesting. This one is on my tools-to-try list. Of course, I can see that the one big drawback for my use is that it runs on the dekstop and not a server, which is a must for me these days. Another potential issue that I see here is that it is easy for me to suscribe to over 200 RSS feeds in my aggregator, but I doubt that WebGrabit would be able to display 200 “grabs” on my desktop. There’s just not enough room. (link via Del.icio.us)