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Amazon Introduces Web Services Interface

Posted by timothy on from the smartliness dept.

skunkeh writes: "Amazon have launched a brand new web service interface to their huge database of products. The interface can be used through SOAP or by requesting XML pages via URL, and their development kit comes with example code in Java and Perl. A Python wrapper is also available, and I have released some sample code in PHP."

3 of 15 comments (clear)

  1. An excellent application... by darylp · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've been wowed by this little application here:

    http://mockerybird.com/index.cgi?node=book+watch

    It takes an XML formatted list of books from one web service, looks these books up via the Amazon API, then runs a search on the titles via the Google API. Combining three separate services into one unified system.

    The people wondering "Why bother?" when Google released their Web Service missed the point entirely. One service isn't anything special. It's what you can do when you combine a couple of them that makes things interesting.

    Ideally, the Book Watch Plus application can be converted into a Web Service itself, so someone else can use it as a component in THEIR application.

  2. from the terms and conditions by 216pi · · Score: 1, Interesting

    you do not exceed 1 call per second or send files greater than 20K

    I would love to know how I should assure that I will not exceed this limit with php... anyone out there?

  3. eBay needs this by ManxStef · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It'd do eBay a whole lot of good to have an web service interface, the added flexibility would surely increase their sales considerably.

    Their whole "e-mail when you get outbid" and MS Messenger alert system is waaay too slow. I usual get my "auction has finished" mails about a 24 hrs after it actually finished, and messenger alerts tend to take about 10 minutes or more (no good when someone snipes you in the last 5 min of the auction), so the ability to write a web service that'd tell me INSTANTLY that I've been outbid (or whatever) would be very handy.

    Of course eBay might not want you to be able to bid via a web service (they might want you to have to use their own designed interfaces to make things fair for everybody), but in that case it's simple enough to just leave those methods for the moment and stick to the "read-only" and search functions.

    The other thing that I'd wish for is that companies like Amazon would roll-out their services SIMULTANEOUSLY worldwide. It sucks that it only applies to .com, what about .co.uk, .de, .fr, .co.jp?