Brewed
Week of 9.15.03
Read a good Web success story lately? How about a definitive "How-To" manual for e-commerce ingenuity? That's what we'd call "Amazon Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips and Tools," authored by Paul Bausch, and published by O'Reilly & Associates (around $17.95 from Amazon, of course.).
Disguised as a compendium of coder's craftiness, this potent guidebook to the ultimate Web e-tail experience spans the latest online merchandising wisdom to the most sophisticated user interface savvy and lays it all on the line in plain English, (plus a few other "languages" like Perl and Javascript besides).
Focusing on the inside tips and tools for getting the most out of Amazon.com — "whether you're an Amazon shopper, an Amazon associate, a seller or an application developer" — the book imparts practically all of the Web commerce gems that have been mined from the Amazon quarry. Web designers might easily be drawn to compare the Amazon "gold standards" to their own Web projects. In that regard the book is truly inspirational for the next generation of Internet storefront development.
For example, there are the features that enable Amazon users to create their own Wish Lists, product suggestion guides and user reviews, not to mention set up alerts and reminders for new product announcements, donate to charities through associate links, display Amazon search results on their own sites, or even add Amazon CD cover art to their MP3 collection. Each "hack" represents the state-of-the-art in e-tail marketing. While Amazon's implementations of these features are proprietary, the concepts behind them are applicable by anyone interested in improving their e-commerce interface. Indeed, it is the fact that Amazon has been so public with its methodology as a part of a robust development platform and developer's network that has made it a conduit for such leading edge Web shopping services.
"By lowering the barriers to entry and experimentation on top of the Amazon platform, we invite true hackers to extend and enhance the platform for all to enjoy -- including us!" So goes the cover blurb by The Amazon.com Technology Team who generously contributed to the book.
In fact the Contributor's Credits list many of the Who's Who in Amazon's elite team and reflect highly on the Seattle Internet development community. Author Paul Bausch is a cocreator or the popular weblog software Blogger. Among the local contributors, Jeff Barr handles web service evangelism and developer relations for Amazon and in his spare time collects RSS newsfeeds at syndic8.com. Erik Benson, the Technical Program Manager of Personalized Merchandising at Amazon also runs allconsuming.net. Bruce Bracken works as Lead Web Development Engineer in the Search & Browse Group at Amazon.com and founded the Javascript Advisory Group to help standardize Javascript use on Amazon.com. Information Security Engineer Cyrus Durgin is identified as someone who spends his spare time house hunting in Seattle with his sweetie. The Amazer's List goes on!
If you work in e-tailing, you've just found your missing manual. A definite must-read for anyone committed to conducting more productive, more user-centric Web commerce. We give it two thumbs up! [24x7]
Copyright 2000 Seattle24x7.com
All Rights Reserved