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Remixing the web, part 1: Pulling RSS feeds from static pages
Real-time data is the future of the web. Unfortunately, this future is far from evenly-distributed, and many times you’re not able to make use of information because of this. Consider the following scenarios:
- You’re looking for a new place to live and aren’t having luck with Craigslist. You find several local real estate brokerage sites but none of them have RSS feeds, leaving you with a nagging suspicion that there are better deals out there that you’re not equipped to take advantage of.
- You want to track updates in a timely manner to a job listing site that doesn’t have an RSS feed.
- You want to track updates on a Wikipedia article about a topic you’re interested in.
- You want to find out any updates about an obscure news story on a site that doesn’t have a feed. The following resources are ones that I’ve personally tested for turning static pages into dynamic content. This is the foundation for much more exciting, innovative, useful, and, above all, easily do-able projects that I’ll discuss in future articles.