Show HN: Obsessively follow a news story | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Obsessively follow a news story

beset.me

27 pointsdanvesma15 comments

You know, this reminds me of some old Web 1.0 services that would kind of do the same. You'd register an address, and if the site changes any content, you'd get an email. I used to have dozens of pages registered, mostly news type sites and always kept up-to-date with things.

At some point they went away, I think RSS killed them, but RSS never seemed to work quite as well for me for some reason, too granular I think.

I'm really glad to see something like back again.

So the idea is that you add a link, it watches for changes to the article's content and alerts you if a change. Sounds good, but it seems rare for sites to update existing articles, when another could be posted.

Ever thought about watching the parent site for updates with similar content?

I had a friend who really really wanted a way of following a specific news story, such that he could register and then even years later if something developed he would get an email.

I worked on something that did just that: http://www.newstrapper.com/

that's very pretty

Yeah, I'd second this. If it's really targeted at following news stories, watching a given page change is not as useful as some sort of tag-based or curated per-topic subscription.

One thing I'd find this useful for would be when you're waiting for something to be released - point this at an author's website (or a subpage related to a book you're looking forward to) to be automatically notified when the page changes. Similarly, I think that Overdrive (e-book and audiobook lending through public libraries) has a page where it lists the libraries carrying a given book. If you're hoping that your library starts carrying a given book, you could imagine following a page like that.

Another feature suggestion - maybe put in an option for a reminder to check back even if the page hasn't changed either on some interval or after some period of time. I could see using that as a tool to try to keep kickstarters and the like honest ("You said there'd be an update after 14 days, it's been 18 days, no update...").

An alternate take on this would be for websites/services that have a splash page but no signup form/RSS feed or a non-news/blog site such as a bakery, local restaurant, etc.

From the name/HN prompt, I thought it'd be something that gave you updates as a story was developed. For example, you hear about a criminal being captured, but you don't always hear about the trial/sentencing. A few months later you're asking "What ever happened to that guy who..."

Its great feedback, thank you. The thought really was for one to be able to watch a specific news outlets' coverage of a storey to see how it changes over time. If you start watching an article from someone like the BBC when it first breaks, seeing what they add in (and more excitingly take out) as it develops is fascinating.

I had the idea when I was obsessively following MH370 and i'd refresh a page a couple of hours after reading it and try to work out what had happened in the time between.

If it gains any sort of traction and interest I'll absolutely expand its reach to offer watching a single storey across multiple articles and outlets.

This is cool, thanks for sharing.

I hoped when I saw the title that this would be a service to let me find out what happened in a story some time later. I often find 'developing' stories of great potential import seem to disappear from the world's media later on, and I never get to see how things actually turned out.

The really obsessed never stop watching their news providers to see if new stories are breaking. I think Beset works well for watching specific articles to see if they change, even if that's six months after they're published.

This is great! I'm going to put a few pages there that I obsessively follow anyway. RSS isn't available (or good) often and I don't want to create social media profiles to get updates.

A really big thank you for everyone who's commented, it's great to have helpful feedback when you throw an idea out there.

Thin white text on bright red background at the bottom is just unreadable and user-hostile.

I did wonder about that when I was building it, but I liked the BREAKING NEWS lower thirds metaphor and only want the user there for a couple of minutes.

I think the design is really great

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