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Summary: All your bases are belong to us
Review: ALL YOUR BASES ARE BELONG TO US
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Summary: if you think you know Amazon, you're wrong
Review: Amazon lives up to it's name.. it's huge and practically unknowable.
Amazon Hacks is the best of the wonderful "Hacks" series. You won't be suprised to see that you know about most of the 100 hacks and/or find them unusable.
However, there are at least 0 that changed how I look at and use Amazon everyday.
I've been on Amazon as a buyer, seller, publisher, author and heavy user since the begining. I professionally promote books on Amazon... still, I found new information in this book.
I recommend anything in the HACK series, and this one for anyone that intend to use web services, Amazon, or a computer in the next decade.
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Summary: Another excellent "hacks" book.
Review: By looking at the home page, one might assume Amazon.com is a simple site for such a large portal. Search for the book, put it in your shopping cart, and buy it.But there's actually a lot more to Amazon, which you can see by reading this book. Many small timesaving (or just plain fun) features and tips have been added to this excellent title. Amazon Associates in particular will love this book because of the extensive coverage of both Associates, linking to Amazon, and Amazon Web Services. But it's also nice for average users who want to know more about the coolest features of Amazon. A must for any Associate, and a good read for anyone else.
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Summary: Awesome collection of
Review: Having posted over 200 reviews on Amazon over the past three years, I thought I was reasonably familiar with what Amazon had to offer on its site. While I was familiar with wish lists, posting reviews and the like, this book proved me wrong, as I learned about numerous other features (especially movie show times!) that Amazon offers. Among the features are finding individual ASIN's (Amazon Standard Item Number) for each product listed on Amazon, switching to a text-only Amazon (good if you want Amazon's site to load quickly), "power searching" on books, linking to personal Amazon reviews from your own web site, and countless others. There are also hacks designed to make it more convenient to sell items through Amazon, or participate in the Amazon community, even some hacks designed to let you use Amazon's Web Services. I'm not a programmer, so I'm not interested in those hacks specifically, but they do show how Amazon's Web Services can be used to create alternative interfaces that may be of use to Amazon or other fellow programmers. Amazon Hacks shows how by using some "tricks," you can make your own use of Amazon and its numerous services that much more enjoyable and useful. This book is a wonderful "guide" to some interesting "hacks" that can be used while browsing the Amazon.com site.
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Summary: Excellent for the serious Amazon user
Review: If you have to ask if you are a serious Amazon user, you probably aren't. Serious amazon users are most likely vendors selling on or through Amazon. For those types this book is chock full of hints and tidbits about how to use Amazon directly and how to automate their usage through Perl and the web services API. So if you knew that Amazon had a web services API and have used it, you will get a lot out of this book. Otherwise I would recommend hanging back because you probably won't get a lot out of it.
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Summary: For Customers, Sellers, Amazon Associates & Web Developers
Review: In "Amazon Hacks" author Paul Bausch presents 100 "hacks" that will help customers and sellers get the most out of Amazon's vast database. The book is organized into 6 chapters. The first three are dedicated to hacks that customers will find useful: "Browsing and Searching", "Controlling Your Information", and "Participating in the Amazon Community". Chapters 4-6 present hacks that will be useful to Marketplace Sellers, Amazon Associates, and web developers: "Selling Through Amazon", "Associates Program", and "Amazon Web Services". The complexity of each hack is rated beginner, moderate, or expert. Most of the hacks in Chapters 1-3 are suitable for beginners, with some moderate and advanced hacks in there as well. Chapters 4-6 contain mostly moderate to expert hacks, with Chapter 6 leaning toward expert. I commonly spend several hours per day on Amazon (ahem, cough, cough!). The site is constantly changing, and there is always something new to discover. But I have acquired a decent familiarity with Amazon through all of my countless (and they shall remain that way) hours of clicking around the site. From this standpoint, I would say that the first 3 chapters of "Amazon Hacks" don't provide any understanding of the Search, Community features, or Account information that someone who has been around a while would not already have. In fact, the book's information on Amazon Community features isn't comprehensive. On the other hand, there are hacks for getting additional utility out of Amazon such as: configuring Internet Explorer to search Amazon from its address bar or any web page, adding an Amazon sidebar to Mozilla, prioritizing your wish list using a third-party service, sorting recommendations and items by average rating, finding a purchase circle by zip code, tracking the sales ranks of items over time, and how to perform a lot of tasks remotely. I am not a programmer or an Amazon Associate, so I am not in the best position to judge the helpfulness of Chapters 4-6. But it looks to me like Amazon Associates who want to integrate more information from Amazon's database into their site could benefit immensely from Chapter 5. You will find how to: allow customers to purchase items or add them to Amazon wish lists through your site, do that using pop-up windows, create Amazon banner ads that include product recommendations, show Amazon search results on your site, add an Amazon Box to your site, measure and publish your Associates sales statistics, and more hacks along these lines. Chapter 6, "Amazon's Web Services", basically provides hacks that web developers can use to acquire any information from Amazon's database in machine-readable format. Amazon released their Web Services API in 2002, so they are inviting developers to build applications using the Amazon platform. You will need a developer's token, which you get by opening an Associate's account, then screen-scrape to your heart's content!
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Summary: For Customers, Sellers, Amazon Associates & Web Developers
Review: In "Amazon Hacks" author Paul Bausch presents 100 "hacks" that will help customers and sellers get the most out of Amazon's vast database. The book is organized into 6 chapters. The first three are dedicated to hacks that customers will find useful: "Browsing and Searching", "Controlling Your Information", and "Participating in the Amazon Community". Chapters 4-6 present hacks that will be useful to Marketplace Sellers, Amazon Associates, and web developers: "Selling Through Amazon", "Associates Program", and "Amazon Web Services". The complexity of each hack is rated beginner, moderate, or expert. Most of the hacks in Chapters 1-3 are suitable for beginners, with some moderate and advanced hacks in there as well. Chapters 4-6 contain mostly moderate to expert hacks, with Chapter 6 leaning toward expert. I commonly spend several hours per day on Amazon (ahem, cough, cough!). The site is constantly changing, and there is always something new to discover. But I have acquired a decent familiarity with Amazon through all of my countless (and they shall remain that way) hours of clicking around the site. From this standpoint, I would say that the first 3 chapters of "Amazon Hacks" don't provide any understanding of the Search, Community features, or Account information that someone who has been around a while would not already have. In fact, the book's information on Amazon Community features isn't comprehensive. On the other hand, there are hacks for getting additional utility out of Amazon such as: configuring Internet Explorer to search Amazon from its address bar or any web page, adding an Amazon sidebar to Mozilla, prioritizing your wish list using a third-party service, sorting recommendations and items by average rating, finding a purchase circle by zip code, tracking the sales ranks of items over time, and how to perform a lot of tasks remotely. I am not a programmer or an Amazon Associate, so I am not in the best position to judge the helpfulness of Chapters 4-6. But it looks to me like Amazon Associates who want to integrate more information from Amazon's database into their site could benefit immensely from Chapter 5. You will find how to: allow customers to purchase items or add them to Amazon wish lists through your site, do that using pop-up windows, create Amazon banner ads that include product recommendations, show Amazon search results on your site, add an Amazon Box to your site, measure and publish your Associates sales statistics, and more hacks along these lines. Chapter 6, "Amazon's Web Services", basically provides hacks that web developers can use to acquire any information from Amazon's database in machine-readable format. Amazon released their Web Services API in 2002, so they are inviting developers to build applications using the Amazon platform. You will need a developer's token, which you get by opening an Associate's account, then screen-scrape to your heart's content!
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Summary: A super "hacker" guide to getting the most out of Amazon.com
Review: Mention the word "Amazon" today and most people will not necessarily think of the largest river in the world, especially the very young. The common perception of Amazon.com is that it is a web-based bookstore, but like its namesake river, Amazon.com is much more than merely a place to buy books. Today, Amazon.com is really a complex web application. Instead of just a place to buy various items, Amazon.com is a tool you can customize and adapt to your own uses. This includes participating in the Amazon community, earning money through Amazon's Marketplace and Associates Programs, as well as improving the way you interact with the site. This latest addition to O'Reilly's very successful Hacks series shows readers of every level how to tap into the power that Amazon offers. Through these industrial-strength tips and tools, readers will learn how to get the most out of Amazon.com. Over Amazon's lifetime, the company has invested $900 million in technology. Though Amazon.com is more often thought of as an online "shop," today the company is really a highly advanced technology company. More and more, Amazon.com is in the business of providing technology to other businesses, as well as their customers. For example, 30% of Amazon's business is from third-party sales. This means other businesses, and sometimes even competitors are making money through Amazon.com. In this super new "Hacks" title, we have a call to all true hackers out there to innovate on the platform. By lowering barriers to entry and experimentation on top of the Amazon platform, true hackers are invited to extend and enhance the platform for all to enjoy. There are tools and tips here that will appeal to a wide variety of audiences, including online shoppers, web site owners, sellers of products, and software developers. Readers are also encouraged to remember that some of the hacks in the book will continue to evolve. You can always find the current ingredients for any serious software development, the Amazon.com API, at www.amazon.com/webservices. When Amazon.com first opened its virtual doors on July 16, 1995, it was one of several online booksellers. As Amazon embraced the technology to categorize and display millions of books in one space, people embraced the ability to search for and purchase books in a new way. The experience of building a successful business based on an open system like the Web has influenced Amazon throughout its history. Amazon has consistently pushed the technology envelope in their quest to provide a satisfying, personalized experience for their customers. What started as a human-edited list of product recommendations has morphed into a sophisticated computer-generated recommendation engine that tailors product choices for tens of millions of individuals by analyzing their purchase history and the patterns of other Amazon customers. As the Web evolved into a two-way space for discussion and community, Amazon developed features that let anyone post information and advice about products. With this intriguing history, it should not have been a surprise when on July 16, 2002 Amazon released a free Web Services interface that gave developers programmatic access to Amazon's vast collection of product and customer data. With this interface, Amazon combined their core features of recommendations, affiliate marketing, and marketplace commerce into a single technology platform that can be used to build applications and businesses. "Amazon Hacks" is not intended to be merely an exhaustive explanation of Amazon's features. Instead it's intended to highlight some lesser-known features, show some tricks for working with Amazon efficiently, and document ways to access Amazon programmatically. Developers are already creating new features for Amazon through the Amazon API, and it is this book's intent to convey some of their creativity and excitement, inspiring the hacker in you. Summary of Table of Contents The 100 Amazon hacks are organized into 6 chapters, including the following: 1 - Browsing and Searching
2 - Controlling Your Information
3 - Participating in the Amazon Community
4 - Selling Through Amazon
5 - Associates Program
6 - Amazon Web Services Key Topics Covered This book will show you how to do the following: Find just the product you are after among the millions available at Amazon Access, control, and fine-tune your Amazon preferences, recommendations, and information Participate in the growing Amazon community and integrate Amazon features into your own Web site Become and Amazon Associate, develop your own online storefront, and hone your recommendations for better linking and higher referral fees Sell products online using Amazon's billing, inventory, and marketing infrastructure Build full-scale desktop and server applications on Amazon's Web Services API Book Contents 304 pages; foreword by the Amazon technology team; preface; figures; tips; sample scripts; index; cover colophon Author Paul Bausch About the Author Paul Bausch is an accomplished Web Application Developer, and is a co-creator of the popular weblog software Blogger (www.blogger.com). He co-wrote "We Blog: Publishing Online with Weblogs" (John Wiley & Sons), and posts thoughts and photos almost daily to his personal weblog onfocus (www.onfocus.com). ISBN August 2003 First Edition
0-596-00542-3
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Summary: Amazon Scoops
Review: Only Amazon Hacks has the inside scoop on how to access the power of Amazon's mighty computer arsenal and use it to your advantage. Amazon Hacks shows clearly that Amazon is more then just a book store. It is one of the most sophisticated computer systems in the world and with Amazon Hacks you can create learn how to make it your slave. From simple programs that will make your searches super-easy to learning how to join in on the fun of participating in the Amazon Community, you will discover the information that most people never dream Amazon can provide. You will learn how to maximize your participation in the creating reviews, in sharing your particular specialty through creating "guides" and giving customer advice on which Amazon product is best for their needs. You can even learn how to keep your fiends updated on what you are reading or how to save your friends money on books that you buy through Amazon.
But the most profitable part of this book is learning how to turn Amazon into your own personal money-maker. Using these hard-to-find scripts and "secret" information, you can become a power associate for Amazon and even learn how to use Amazon's vast customer drawing power to sell your own books; whether they be used or new. Believe me, there is no easier way to become a profitable bookseller they by using Amazon has your front door to the world's book buyers.
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Summary: Too expensive for what it offers
Review: The book is geared toward people who want to sell stuff or take advantage of the Associates program. It's really a better-organized version of Amazon.com's own help pages (which are more accurate but harder to navigate). If this book were half the price I'd give it 4 stars, but it's too expensive for the limited content.
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