This is actually more complicated than it sounds. Most message boards don’t open up their API (usually to prevent spam), and if they do, you’ll probably have to work with them to get the details.
The general idea is:
- Open socket to their server
- Send the appropriate data according to their API
- Profit
If you want to hack it, you’ll have to do some scraping/wireshark packet sniffing to figure out their API. There will probably be some cookies you’ll have to read to get communication tokens and whatnot. It’s possible, but it’s a lot of work.
Some other websites (like Twitter and Google) open up their API and actually provide developer tools to interact with their data. I don’t think a site like ESPN would be that open to hobbyist developers, so you’d probably have to sign some kind of agreement.
If you’re really interested, read up on HTTP (here’s a really simple beginning tutorial). Most APIs are built on the HTTP protocol, so you’ll want to become very familiar with it. I’d recommend using something besides C++ though, since socket work can be a bit tedious. Try something like Python.
solved Communicate With Online Message Board [closed]