
Show HN: Get emailed whenever your brand is mentioned on Hacker News or Reddit - codeplea
https://f5bot.com
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stephenr
Given that you're running it for free, any chance you'd open source it, so we
can a) run our own, without costing you money and b) contribute?

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zepolen
Heh, I've been working on something similar too, but sending notifications to
slack - [https://littlebirdie.io/](https://littlebirdie.io/) it's sort of in
beta phase at the moment, but you're free to check it out.

~~~
codeplea
Hi. Any idea how your Show HN [1] post got way more upvotes in an hour than
mine did in a day? Is Slack really that much more popular than email now?

Anyway, looks like you have a great product!

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13706772](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13706772)

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sk24iam
I've seen this app:
[https://www.trackreddit.com/](https://www.trackreddit.com/) Is the difference
that your app covers Hacker News as well?

FYI, the verification email is not a link.

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codeplea
The difference between F5Bot and trackreddit, is that F5Bot is free and it
covers HN + Lobsters too. I have plans to add a couple other sites soon as
well. I also like to think that F5Bot has an easier interface. Trackreddit
does have a few additional features.

The verification email doesn't use HTML. Does it not show up as clickable in
your email client?

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polygot
What's the advantages using this service rather than using a custom Google
search alert on a particular domain?
[https://www.google.com/alerts](https://www.google.com/alerts)

~~~
codeplea
F5Bot will be much, much faster. The idea is that you'd get an email when the
discussion starts, and then you could go and join in.

Also, Google alerts doesn't get 100% coverage of the sites, AFAIK.

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steelcm
I've tried to write something similar, but I found that I was hitting the
upper comment limitation of reddits API (ie. If there are more than 10k
comments on a subreddit within an hour). How did you get around this problem?

~~~
codeplea
I'm not monitoring the really popular subreddits. Let's face it, no one is
going to mention me in /r/Pics, so I don't bother monitoring it.

You can see exactly what is monitored here:
[https://f5bot.com/what](https://f5bot.com/what) I'm focusing on mostly
programmer related subreddits for now, but I'll add subreddits as people ask.
I had a couple people ask yesterday for me to add specific subreddits, and I
did.

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codeplea
I made this as a tool that I found useful, and I decided that it wouldn't be
much more work to turn it into a free service and share. I'll probably open-
source it if there's any interest.

It's new, so any feedback is greatly appreciated!

Thanks for looking.

~~~
winkv
i think you should consider making a profitable product out of it instead of
open sourcing it(i know we are good samritans :) ). It can be used as
marketing tool. Brands will subscribe to your service and will be informed
when their brand name appears on site. This can than be used for damage
control if it involves bad press or marketing for e.g answering questions
giving discount etc. if someone shows interest.

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overcast
In case anyone is looking for something much more complex, quick google search
came up with [https://mention.com](https://mention.com) \- pricey, but looks
pretty polished.

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codeplea
I saw this before I built F5Bot. They want $29/mo for 2 alerts. I thought that
was crazy, so I wrote F5Bot.

The F5Bot prototype only took me about 2 hours to write, and I tested it
personally for a month with good success. Then I realized I could pretty
easily add user accounts and share it, so I did.

~~~
overcast
Yes definitely crazy pricey, you're paying for that interface for sure. Kudos
to you for doing your own thing! :)

~~~
bbcbasic
Not too crazy given the value it provides. Must we all work for free?

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thysultan
Trying to add keywords `react` / `python` and others fail with...

> That keyword is too common. Please enter a more uncommon keyword or phrase.

So some product names could fall under the `common` namespace.

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codeplea
This is a free service that I built in a couple hours, so I put in some limits
for now. I didn't want someone to put in a word like 'react' and then get
flooded with unwanted emails ('react' is a common English word, most of the
results wouldn't even be relevant). I think I'll raise the limits eventually,
but I want to add a few more features first, such as one-click-unsubscribe,
before I start allowing people to get 1000 alerts a day.

In the meantime, feel free to add more specific phrases. For example, you
could add 'react js' or 'with react' or 'in react' to get some relevant
results.

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ezekg
I've been looking for something like this. Does it send you a daily summary,
or an email for each mention?

~~~
codeplea
It sends an email for each mention. It usually happens within a couple minutes
after the post. The idea is that you could actually head over and join the
conversation, if needed.

