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Need to take screenshots of competitor web pages - continuouly and automatically

by Pelowtz
11 replies
Looking for some automated software that crawls the web taking screenshots of the websites that I want. There are about 5 to 10 competing websites that I need to track. I need this thing to navigate to the site twice a day, take a screen shot and either email it to me or save it on a server somewhere.

If there isn't one available now, let's build it!
#automatic #automatically #competitor #continuouly #pages #screenshots #web
  • Profile picture of the author acamso
    Never heard of this approach.. a cool idea indeed. After doing a quick Google search, I came across this site. It may lead you in the right direction. Schedule Screenshots of Websites, Webpages Screenshots Scheduling, Web Pages Snapshots Scheduler, Supports JPEG, JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP and TIF.
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    • Profile picture of the author Pelowtz
      Hmm. Didn't think to google those keywords. I was trying "automatic screenshot software". this seems like a decent option, although it looks like you have to have your computer on all the time. Not ideal. Thanks for the heads up.
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  • Profile picture of the author pingsters
    Banned
    HI, use ubotstudio to built the software..
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    • Profile picture of the author Pelowtz
      ubot looks like an incredible tool. Anyone have experience running it with a windows emulator on a Mac?
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  • Profile picture of the author tylerquick
    I use Amazon's Mturk for stuff like that, but if you really want a software solution I could certainly help you get it built!
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    • Profile picture of the author Pelowtz
      Mturk is a last resort, but great suggestion..
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  • Profile picture of the author jonnoryan
    yep, ubot is your man for this
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    • Profile picture of the author acamso
      Pelowtz, I can build you this for cheap. If interested, shoot me an email with as much detail as possible - acamso@gmail.com
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      • Profile picture of the author Brandon Tanner
        This would be pretty easy to develop in .NET (desktop software). You would obviously have to leave your computer on for it to work though (although you could be doing other stuff while it works in the background). Another option would be to use automation software for this, like iMacros or WinAutomation.

        If you'd rather have something that works even when your computer is off, then you could write a script that runs on your server to do this. PHP version 5.2.2 or newer actually has a screenshot function built-in now (imagegrabscreen). You could set up cron jobs to have your screenshot script fire at specified times each day, and then save the images to your server (or have them emailed to you). The only drawback is that imagegrabscreen only works on Windows servers. Don't know if there are any similar options for Linux servers.

        Also, there are plenty of web services out there that take screenshots and store them on their servers and then let you access them via API (for a fee), so that's another option. Google "web screenshot capture service".
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  • Profile picture of the author Doug77
    There is a site which is like the Way Back Machine but takes screenshots instead and does it on a daily basis. There are already sites with historical daily screenshots, but if you need to track a new site you can request that. They are stored on the Internet for everyone to see but you can also subscribe to email alerts.
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    • Profile picture of the author Jeff Lenney
      Originally Posted by Doug77 View Post

      There is a site which is like the Way Back Machine but takes screenshots instead and does it on a daily basis. There are already sites with historical daily screenshots, but if you need to track a new site you can request that. They are stored on the Internet for everyone to see but you can also subscribe to email alerts.
      Dude, this thread died a year ago. Did you need to bring it back?
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      Too lazy to write something clever here, so check out my marketing blog and learn from a REAL Super Affiliate at JeffLenney.com

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