Data gathering - web service or hosted web application?

I need to gather information from a n开发者_如何学Goumber of web sites on a regular basis throughout the day and present that information to a number of client applications via a web service interface.

Is it possible to do this and deploy the resulting "application" via a commercial hosting package or do I need to go to a dedicated server in order to run the data gathering side of the equation?

In essence, I need to gather information every 10 mins, parse the resultant data, store it in memory and then return elements of that data when requested via the web service.

I'm looking at a .net solution, but if it is easier to achieve what I am aiming at through some other route, then I'd be happy for some advice.

Look into Google AppEngine: start free and go commercial if required.