Looking for a developer that can create a custom android plugin.

Hi in Seattle. Any ideas about what this plugin should do? LOL. If you need to keep in under wraps....OK. But, it's usually easier to find help if you provide a tidbit about what it's going to do. Not sure what offers you'll get...but...there are a few ninjas in these forums totally capable of helping.

I started to go into detail but thought it might be too much to start. I'm looking for a developer that can create a Android plugin that can go out and scrap classified ad sites and provide results that are within a certain number of miles of my phones GPS location. For example, let's say I'm a collector of Ford Mustang cars and happen to be in another City of State. I would like a plugin application that could find results for Ford Mustangs cars for sale in the area I'm in based on the GPS location of my phone.

Ah, makes some sense. I'm not a fan of "scraping" content from other folks sites but that's besides the point :-) I think you'll find a combination of the device and a website / php backend working together will be the best approach. I say this because... --The device won't be able to download and save lists of webpages, parse them, then do something meaningful with the data. It could be done but seems problematic and complicated (keep reading) --Your devices battery would die very VERY quickly if the tiny thing was download loads and loads of data and processing it somehow. --There are countless backend packages that already do this very well. Backend meaning .php powered scripts that work on your web server that run web server centric software (like cURL) who's sole purpose in life is to download data from URL's and save it for further processing. So, maybe something like this maybe... 1) You're driving around, GPS on, sending your devices location to the mother ship (your web site) 2) Your website receives these simple, lightweight "location reports" and uses a technology like cURL to hit a known list of websites. This would need to be known in advance. Say Craigs list, AutoTrader, Cars.com etc. The backend makes the HTTP / URL request and saves the results in a database. 3) You hit a "show me nearby results" or "map results" or whatever on the device. The devices makes a request to YOUR backend / website, not somewhere mysterious. Your backend outputs the data to the device. Output could be map locations, webpages, images, whatever you saved and needed. The toughest part of all of this will be figuring out how to "scrape" data from folks that don't want you to scrape it. It's not a trivial thing to post queries to their backend to then get results per for a certain area. Remember, they want you using their apps and their websites to make these searches, not an automated process. Of course you could do this technically, just not sure how feasible it is? Keep thinking on these ideas, there may be a much easier, faster, useful and transparent way to accomplish the goal. Hmm...I'll think too....

I love these David thinks out loud threads.... So much awesome advice and tips in there to think and build it's not even funny. It's like a mini blueprint you provide here. Great stuff.

Hello @insane60, Welcome to buzztouch! Seattle rocks! From your pic, it looks like you might be up in the Space Needle? I lived in Kirkland for several years, was born in Bremerton...simply love Puget Sound! @David has some amazing ideas up there...hopefully they help! Mark

Thanks David, you have given me much food for thought. I will keep thinking on it. However, my skill level in this area is a bit limited. I'm more of a creative guy. @GoNorthWest, good to hear from you!

@insane60 Welcome fellow Washingtonian! Nice to see my state represented more on Buzztouch! Over here in Spokane....you know where the Sun is ;). just kidding! Actually I miss my emerald city...glad to see you on board. Like the idea you got going on. My CNA READY! aka BE A CNA app has a "jobfinder" within the app that grabs RSS feeds and puts them in OPML document/html style. I am wondering if you can do this for your idea with RSS Feeds? What I did is had a list of RSS feeds with keywords done for each major job board like Indeed, Simply Hired.... each state (outsourced on Odesk) it grabbed all the CNA jobs. Now a word of caution. I did try to do this solely and Itunes rejected me when I uploaded it as a "jobfinder" I had to implemented it in app that was heavy on original content and not just RSS feeds. However, Google Play you probably will not have a problem. If you want to put it itunes throw in some other features. Putting the GPS along with it might be tricker...but keep asking the question you will develop your dream. That's exactly how I landed here on buzztouch.....I had an idea on app...wanted it made....tried my own developer didn't work out so I did myself. You have enough tools and brains on the site to get your answer....just keep on looking around the forums, learn the lessons and you will find your answer. Best of luck and again welcome aboard! Sheri

Thanks @Sheri, I was just in Spokane for business last month. Yes, it's a lot sunnier in your neck of the woods. I was looking into RSS feeds but don't think I can incorporate the GPS feature the way I in vision the app working. Maybe I could do something with maps instead. I determined to figure it out to some degree. How is your app doing?