Freelancer verdict · build Pain point

Chrome extension capturing post timestamps automatically from social sites

Built for social media researchers and content analysts.

“Web Scraping Projects for $250-750 CAD. What I want is a script (chrome extension maybe) that can automatically capture the date and time a person posted, ...…”

💰 Willingness to pay, in their words

“Web Scraping Projects for $250-750 CAD.”

The receipts — real demand

“Web Scraping Projects for $250-750 CAD. What I want is a script (chrome extension maybe) that can automatically capture the date and time a person posted, ...”
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6.1 / 10 · demand score
Pain 7
Willingness to pay 6
Feasibility 7
Specificity 6
Audience 6
Competition 8

Why this is a gap

Surfaced from a high-intensity complaint with clear willingness to pay and a specific, reachable audience.

The market

Social media researchers and content analysts capturing post metadata (dates, times). No search volume data, but the pain signal shows a freelancer posting for a Chrome extension to auto-capture timestamps, suggesting periodic demand from OSINT and academic researchers.

Competition & the opening

Already owned an incumbent owns the exact job Moat 2/10 · no real moat Market 6/10 · a real vertical
Category giants · 8/10 vs Timestamp Capture (Chrome Web Store — multiple free extensions doing exactly this)Wayback Machine Browser Extension (Internet Archive)ScreenshotGorilla / GoFullPage (screenshot + timestamp capture combos)Hunchly (forensic web capture with timestamps, used by OSINT investigators)Bellingcat Auto-Archiver (open-source tool for timestamping social posts)Tweetdeck / native platform export APIs (Twitter/X, Facebook, LinkedIn all embed timestamps in data exports)

Crowded (8/10): Multiple free timestamp capture Chrome extensions exist on the Web Store; Hunchly (forensic-grade), Bellingcat Auto-Archiver (open-source), and native platform APIs (Twitter/X, Facebook, LinkedIn all expose timestamps in exports) all solve this. The gap is minimal—native platforms already provide timestamps; building another extension offers little differentiation.

What's hard to build

Social platforms regularly change DOM structures, requiring constant extension maintenance. Most social sites already embed timestamps in their data exports or APIs; building a general timestamp scraper is technically trivial but operationally fragile and low-value.

Why now

Free timestamp capture extensions exist but are fragmented and unreliable; Hunchly is enterprise-focused ($500+/mo)—gap for lightweight, reliable OSINT/research tool.

How you'd monetize

freemium Chrome extension ($0 base, $9–19/mo for bulk export + guaranteed timest