My friend Israel clued me in on Dapper a few weeks ago. I have played around with them a very small bit, but that was all it took to recognize their potential. The idea is simple, the implementation not so much. When you browse videos on YouTube, the layout of search results are all the same. So why can’t something recognize this and treat any search result as an rss feed, checking it periodically for changes? Enter Dapper. One thing that has bothered me for the past couple years is the fact that the ACM Technews does not have an RSS feed. WTF, ACM? Thanks to Dapper, now it does.
Unfortunately, Dapper is not perfect. It took me a few tries to get my first dapp working (what they call a single instance of the service). Granted, it was on fairly complicated output (not ACM Technews). If the service you are trying to create a dapp of uses sessions, your attempt will probably fail (and if it doesn’t, let me know how you did it). They are still improving the service, though, so perhaps that will change.
If you are into information trapping, though, Dapper is a must have in your arsenal of traps.
