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Developing a forum aggregator/tracker website


camaro97
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Years ago I searched for a forum aggregating service but found none. So over the years I’ve developed one that allows me to follow threads I enjoy and am now aggregating several hundred forums using a small server infrastructure. I certainly now fit the role of a forum addict, lol!

 

Here is an older promo video I made a while back for friends that explains the basics ...

 

This project is just a hobby I work on in my spare time, so there are not a lot of bells and whistles ... and it's a little slow, but I would very much appreciate feedback from the LP community regarding its potential. If feedback is positive, then I plan to start investing a lot more into the project.

 

For forum readers ... is this a service you would use? Or would the novelty wear off after a few days? What do you like? What do you not like? Features? Comments? Concerns?

 

For forum owners ... do you approve of what I am doing? What comments or concerns do you have? Right now, everything is based on web scraping your forum at automatically adjusting intervals depending on the activity level of your forum.

 

Thanks in advance for the feedback.

 

http://agalanche.com/

 

I did get approval to make this post.

 

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There are other forums?

 

LOL ...

 

A year or so ago, I had a forum owner tell me that the people that read his forum don't read any other forums ...

 

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

So, maybe this isn’t something people really want ... based on the lack of feedback :eusa_think:

 

Anyways, I have made some updates/improvements … you can now also create a custom thread feed on thread authors. I have a simple search feature now as well, but lots of content to index. It is much easier to create an account now that I have Facebook Connect enabled.

 

I got ar15.com going too ...

 

Here’s a pic of my category feed ... just as an example so you can see what your custom feed could look like:

 

example-feed.jpg

 

 

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So, maybe this isn’t something people really want ... based on the lack of feedback :eusa_think:

 

 

Darn, if only you'd answer your PM's. Lol. :D Get back to me when you can!

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You may have, in one fell swoop, vanquished the next 10 productive years from Wheels life.

 

Maybe he will see this :)

 

 

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I use a few forums, mostly boat related (have a Donzi Classic), two Rottweiler related, Rolls Royce Club forum (I own a Silver Spur) and this one. Its easy to check each forum individually to see new threads, email notification on most forums tells me when someone has replied to a topic I'm in. Its also easy to check individually each forum for threads I'm in, if the thread is off the front page its dead. Don't see a great need for a forum tracker. People wont pay to use it. The amount of site advertising might support the website and small salary for the owner. Don't see it as a big advertising revenue generator. Good and smart idea, but not really needed!

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I use a few forums, mostly boat related (have a Donzi Classic), two Rottweiler related, Rolls Royce Club forum (I own a Silver Spur) and this one. Its easy to check each forum individually to see new threads, email notification on most forums tells me when someone has replied to a topic I'm in. Its also easy to check individually each forum for threads I'm in, if the thread is off the front page its dead. Don't see a great need for a forum tracker. People wont pay to use it. The amount of site advertising might support the website and small salary for the owner. Don't see it as a big advertising revenue generator. Good and smart idea, but not really needed!

 

 

Thanks for the feedback!

 

I agree with your thoughts that if you only read a couple forums, it may not add much benefit to the user in the website's current state. Is there a feature or capability that would entice you or other users to see more value to use the website? Something more than just a thread tracker?

 

It is something i plan to keep free with the hopes to generate enough advertising revenue to pay for the server costs.

 

 

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How is this different from tapatalk or w/e that other app is that I don't use?

 

I like the pragmatism, but is clicking view new posts really too much work?

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How is this different from tapatalk or w/e that other app is that I don't use?

 

I like the pragmatism, but is clicking view new posts really too much work?

 

Tapatalk is a software plugin that has to be installed on the server ... and only forums that have it installed work with Tapatalk. Which is why LP isn't on Tapatalk ... and i think all the autoguide.com forums no longer use Tapatalk.

 

My website isn't an app , but works on desktop and mobile browsers (have a css issue in my header right now though). Since my service relies on scraping, then it will work on any forum ... even one off custom forum softwares. Thus, you can have one place (e.g., Agalanche) as opposed to multiple apps installed on your phone.

 

With Agalanche, you don't have to be a member of any forum to create customized feeds of the forums or forum categories you want to read. For example, there are a few other forums that have a lambo section ... you can subscribe to those sections to add only those threads to your custom feed without needing an account on that forum or seeing content from other sections.

 

I would like to think my website is intuitive and easy to use offering some unique features. .. such as finding all threads across all forums of a specific username.

 

 

 

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  • 3 months later...

Well, I made my first app :eusa_dance: ... it's not perfect, but works well ... at least with the couple people that have been using.

 

I do want to point out there are NO ads ...

 

Right now, I only have an Andriod app ... but working on an Apple app.

 

App is released as beta version, so it's not searchable in the app store ... and can't be voted on yet. Figured I would get some feedback before releasing publicly :icon_thumleft:

 

https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.phonegap.agalanche

 

Here is a screenshot of a user's main feed:

 

post-6810-1442089026_thumb.png

 

 

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Too many forums would be the death of me. LP for my online social life and S2Ki because S2000. The rest are used only when they come up in google searches based on a specific need of mine.

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Too many forums would be the death of me. LP for my online social life and S2Ki because S2000.

 

lambopower.com and s2ki.com are both available in my app :)

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  • 2 months later...
Awesome. Best of luck :icon_thumleft:

 

Thanks!

 

I've downloaded the app best of luck :icon_thumleft:

 

Thank you!

 

 

The struggle for me is trying to figure out what features/abilities people want to make the app useful to them so they want to use it :eusa_think:

 

Here's a video of the how the app works:

 

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

If an APP to track threads across multiple forums isn't appealing ... what about a forum search engine?

 

Main difference from what I did was index an entire thread as well as each individual post ... compared to traditional search engines that index on a per page basis. I also added filtering and sorting.

 

I have indexed nearly all of LP and another lambo forum just to demonstrate 2 different forums and the ability to filter between each forum.

 

Is something like this useful? It's not perfect and more for demonstrating proof-of-concept.

http://agalanche.com/forumsearch/

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I made some improvements to the app (Andriod and iOS). When you click on a LP thread in one of your feeds, it downloads the page then reformats it to make viewing on mobile devices much better. It's not perfect and if there are any changes to be made, it takes a minute for me to make changes. I can do this for other forums that don't have mobile versions. I do want to point out that it's not for viewing forum categories or doing PMs ... it could be done later.

 

So, is this appealing?

 

lp-mobile.png

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