Web Services Report: June 2003

Amazon, E-commerce and APIs


May 13, 2004
URL:http://drdobbs.com/web-development/web-services-report-june-2003/184415000

Web Services Report - June 2003

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In this Issue

>> Amazon, E-commerce and APIs
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>>Amazon, E-commerce and APIs

Real-life stories of Amazon's Web services initiative.

Last month I introduced the Amazon.com Web services (AWS) API and explored how you can access the company's vast catalog of books, music and other products via SOAP requests. As promised, this month we're visiting some of the websites that Amazon associates have built using the AWS API, searching for inspiration about how you too can expose your organization's data using Web services.

According to Jeff Barr, Web services evangelist for Amazon.com, associates are using Amazon data in a variety of ways. Some have created virtual stores that differentiate themselves from Amazon and each other through appearance and structure. For example, at Simplest-Shop.com e-commerce developer and associate Calin Uioreanu reorganizes and restructures the same data available directly from Amazon to simplify shopping. Compare Simplest-shop's design with that of Kokogiak.com's Amazon page which presents essentially the same catalog. Both sites attempt to simplify the shopper's experience by making it easier to browse for products, but each takes a different approach: Simplest-shop displays the offered products in an easy-to-comprehend visual hierarchy, whereas Kokogiak.com opts for the drill-down approach. (Be sure to check out version 2.0 of Kokogiak; it's currently in beta but is accessible from the default page.) Contrast these two sites with Mario Klingemann's dynamic Flash site, Quasimondo's Amazon Explorer, which visually reveals relationships among items returned by your search (for example, try a keyword search for the term "flash").

Other entrepreneurs have taken a vertical approach to the market and have used the AWS API to display only items related to the focus of their website. For example, All Consuming provides a list of the books that are most frequently cited on the Weblogs from which the websitereceives an RSS feed. Interestingly, All Consuming is experimenting with allowing members to access the book list using its own SOAP interface.

AWS DIY Is it difficult to use the AWS API? To find out, I asked Matthew Klapman at iPilot and David Cusimano at ( Cusimano.com ) to share their experiences. IPilot manufactures a barcode scanner and software that can be used to build online stores, whereas ( Cusimano.com ) sells scripts designed to make it easier for non-programmers to create affiliate websites.

What, I asked Klapman and Cusimano, was their goal in implementing a website using AWS?

"To link product bar codes to a Web storefront utilizing our low-cost, pocket bar-code scanner in a super-intuitive manner," answers Klapman. "[AWS] allowed much of the functionality to occur on the Amazon servers -- we only had to create a thin-client application on the PC and a straightforward server application on our site."

Cusimano chose AWS because it allowed his company to offer a larger selection of products to its visitors. "It would be entirely impractical for us to offer the selection of products and product information that we are now able to offer if we had to add products to our websites by manually programming the web pages," Cusimano explains.

Technical obstacles Klapman faced in adopting AWS revolved around the learning curve, particularly because they were working with prerelease documentation. They also faced the task of becoming proficient with XSL stylesheets.

The most formidable technical obstacle for Cusimano was writing a Perl script that would be flexible enough "to handle all the AWS search types and to format the product information into a variety of HTML using URL parameters." He offers the script, called the "Associate Engine," for a free trial or as a fully licensed product (for $99.95).

Improvements to AWS? Klapman would like to see improved query functions and an expanded UPC database that includes more than books and music. "We are pleased with the AWS implementation," Cusimano says. He's particularly appreciative of Amazon's support available through their discussion forum and weekly online chats.

For those contemplating a venture into AWS territory, Klapman suggests that you fully understand the capabilities of AWS and how they map into your project before you start your project. Cusimano recommends you begin by using existing scripts, like his Associate Engine, to avoid reinventing the wheel.

Amazon.com's meld of online merchandising and an insanely broad range of products makes it unique not only in the retail world, but also in the technology world. By creating an active and motivated associates program, and adding a Web services interface to benefit those associates, Amazon continues to innovate. Not many WSR readers will need to create and support such an ambitious associates program, but Amazon's experiences and methods should suggest a world of more modest possibilities.


Announcement

We want your horror stories! Have you had a horrifying beta experience? The editors are looking for hilarious and harrowing deployment and testing experiences to publish in the October issue of Software Development. Send your submission of no more than 500 words to [email protected].


HOT LINKS

Erik Benson, webmaster at allconsuming.net, has written an article for O'Reilly about how All Consuming uses Web services. Find it at
http://webservices.xml.com/pub/a/ws/2003/05/27/allconsuming.html

Sun Microsystems has recently released the Java Web Services Developer Pack (Java WSDP), a free integrated toolkit that allows Java developers to build, test and deploy XML applications, Web services and Web applications with the latest Web service technologies and standards implementations. Download your copy at
http://java.sun.com/webservices/webservicespack.html

Japanese computer-giant Fujitsu and Scotts Valley, California-based Borland have joined forces to market Borland's JBuilder J2EE tools to Fujitsu's customers. The deal is intended to help users of Fujitsu's Interstage Application Server build applications faster. Further details are available at
http://pr.fujitsu.com/en/news/2003/06/3.html

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