> > I got here because I followed you, actually!
> Huh. I'm flattered :).

Well, you're quite prolific and the signal to noise ratio is pretty decent :). Speaking of: it's much more interesting than I thought even just to see the frequency, time, and interactions of users on HN via Telegram updates. For example, I've found that some users seem to be active at the same times, and (as a result?) get into discussions with each other regularly. I would've never noticed just by my (compulsive) regular browsing.

> In a way, I think there's a triad of required features for productive use of discussion groups: following topics that interest you, following people whose comments you like, and getting notifications when someone talks to you. So following users and keywords are two big things missing for me (notifications on replies I get through HN Notify http://www.hnreplies.com/ by 'dangrossman). I find that I often miss discussions on exactly the topics that interest me, because for some reason they don't show up on the frontpage at the time I'm looking; I hope a keyword-based search will plug that hole, and decrease the urge to refresh the frontpage so often.

Yeah, good observation. I've concluded (and experienced) the same. I chose following users as a first itch to scratch because it seemed easiest and most useful at first. notifications when responded/talked to would be a close second (but I also use hnreplies.com for that; thanks Dan!). The keyword one I'm a bit more uncertain about. I use hn.algolia.com quite regularly for a few keyword searches, and I suspect that 1) there's a bit too much 'noise' for many keywords, and 2) it's quite a bit heavier to implement. I think ideally it'd be a bit 'smarter' somehow than just keywords (even if just AND/OR/WITHOUT, but ideally taking into account upvotes or replies). But how much of a problem this is depends on the channel used. For example, having a dedicated Telegram conversation for a keyword would probably be okay. aggregating this stuff in an email less so, at least not without more contextual information.

> A keyword-based system doesn't have to use e-mail - in fact, I think it would be better as a dashboard (the side project was working on was actually going to be a simple webpage with a list of matches). The benefits of such solution would be that a) you can easily de-duplicate matches, solving your biggest annoyance and avoiding spamming someone's inbox, and b) reducing the distraction factor a bit more for people who didn't yet decide to disable notifications on their e-mails.

Yeah, agreed. The way I see it, the tool I'd like to build or pay for would allow you to pick 1) a source website/page, 2) specify this a bit (elements on page, number of updates for source, whatever is appropriate), 3) specify update frequency, and 4) specify the channel for updates (email, telegram/IM, RSS reader-style interface).

Ideally said tool would be able to suggest elements to 'target', or offer to follow the RSS feed instead (when available).

> That Telegram tool of yours - any chance I could take it for a test drive?

It's an unholy mess of Elixir code right now, and I've never put any of my stuff on github yet, so that's a bit of a barrier, but I'd be happy to let you know if I've got it in some kind of shape that I'd be comfortable sharing :). I'm of half a mind to expand it anyways.

That said, it's pretty simple. Checking for new user posts is trivial, as is sending a Telegram message (just a GET request). most of the effort would be to make this work for multiple consumers.