Amazon.co.uk Associates Blog

Musicovery: The right music for every mood

Today we would like to present another cool application an Amazon Associate has developed using Amazon Web Services (ECS).

In the mood for really dark heavy metal? Or something upbeat and classical? The Amazon Associate Musicovery offers an interactive web radio on its website www.musicovery.com. Here, music lovers can select and listen to the best songs from their favourite music genres (e.g. rock, jazz, classical, metal). For 18 different music genres, you can either choose your preferred mood (dark, positive, energetic, calm) or define how suitable the music you are looking for is to dance to. There is a timeline so you can restrict the search to music from a particular era (e.g. music from the Sixties).

Musicovery then provides a display, with excellent graphics, of the best matches for your song search. You can listen to your favourite song and with just a few mouse clicks buy the CD from Amazon.com. A click on the Amazon icon for the displayed matches takes you to the product detail page at Amazon, where you can find out more about the CD, read customer reviews and order the CD.

See for yourself:

Have fun trying it out at www.musicovery.com!

Amazon.co.uk would like to hear from UK Associates who are using Amazon E-Commerce Services to build innovative web services and solutions! Just send us your examples of successful applications by clicking on the link “comments” at the bottom of this post. We look forward to featuring your examples in our future blog posts!

Find out more about ECS here. Read answers to the most frequently asked questions from ECS newcomers in one of our previous blog posts here.

Tutorial: Amazon.co.ukTop Sellers for a BrowseNode / Display charts using WebServices (ECS)

With Amazon WebServices (ECS) you can always access the latest top sellers at Amazon.co.uk and incorporate these directly (incl. the Associate link) into your website without any effort.

Not only can you display top sellers from Amazon.co.uk’s top categories, but also top sellers from sub-categories. You can decide which categories or sub-categories to query for the latest top sellers and which to display on your site.

Two examples:

• Does your website feature video games for the “Nintendo Wii”? Then not only can you present your users with the Top 10 products from the video games category, but you can also specify that the Amazon.co.ukTop 10 only features products from the “Nintendo Wii” sub-category.

or

• A site about comics can now display the latest Top 10 Amazon comics.

Provide your users with high-ranking top sellers from Amazon (e.g. updating charts) and benefit from increased sales via your website. Top 10 charts are constantly updated so you are always guaranteed the latest (product) content.

Download a tutorial on automatically integrating the Top 10 Amazon.co.uk products at category or sub-category level by the clicking the following link:

Download TUTORIAL_ECS_Topseller_20070201_UK.pdf
(File size: approx. 500 KB / Format: PDF)

First Adobe Apollo based Associate Widgets

Amazon.co.uk Associate yourminis has just launched the first Adobe Apollo (alpha) based Amazon.co.uk desktop widgets.

Apollo is the code name for a cross-operating system runtime being developed by Adobe that allows developers to leverage their existing web development skills (Flash, HTML, JavaScript,etc.) to build and deploy rich Internet applications (RIAs) to the desktop.

To install desktop applications based on Adobe Apollo (e.g. widgets) end users must simply have installed the Adobe Apollo Runtime (similar to the principle of having to install the Flash Player plug-in in order to view Flash content in a webbrowser).

Amazon.co.uk Associate yourminis has now created the following two Adobe Apollo based desktop widgets:

a) Amazon.co.uk wish list (>> Wish list widget):

This widget allows you to search for the name of a user (e.g. first name and/or surname) who has saved a wish list on the Amazon.co.uk website. All matching wish lists on Amazon.co.uk are shown (as long as the user has published his/her wish list).

When a wish list is selected, the system lists all of the products on this wish list using the Yourminis widget. Once the widget settings (size, colour, format, etc.) have been customised, the user can then copy the wish list widget as an Adobe Apollo application to their own desktop.

The products shown on the wish list can then even be viewed from the user€™s desktop if the user is offline. Clicking a product on the wish list loads the product details page for the selected product from Amazon.co.uk in a Web browser.

The following screenshot shows the Amazon wish list widget on a (Mac OS X) desktop:

 
b) Amazon.co.uk search box widget (>> Search widget):

The search box widget enables users to search for products on the Amazon.co.uk website. Search results are displayed directly in the widget. The user can then call up the corresponding product details page on the Amazon.co.uk website by clicking a specific item.

Once the widget settings (size, colour and format) have been customised, the user can then copy the search widget as an Adobe Apollo version onto the PC or MAC desktop (see screenshot above, bottom widget).

These two Amazon.co.uk widgets created by yourminis can also be displayed on standard websites and can even be transferred to the latest social network website (e.g. MySpace) with a single click. This process is made easier by the fact that Adobe Apollo applications, use the same technologies (HTML, Flash, JavaScript, etc.) as standard websites. Both webbrowser versions of the widgets can be found below:

We look forward to being able to present further desktop applications/widgets created by Amazon.co.uk Associates soon.

Both of the widgets presented here were created using Amazon Web Services.  

 

Live Plasma – Amazon Similarities graphically prepared

We want to share another innovative application with you that an Amazon Associate has developed using Amazon Web Services (ECS).

Amazon Associate Live Plasma has developed a website at www.liveplasma.com that uses the popular Amazon Similarities feature: when you search for a music track (e.g. Nirvana) or film (e.g. Matrix Reloaded) on www.liveplasma.com you will also be shown – graphically prepared - images of all similar artists/films. The “similarity” rating is represented by an icon.

Have a look:

Have fun trying it out at www.liveplasma.com!

We look forward to hearing about more innovative Associate applications using Amazon E-Commerce Services (ECS) soon! For example, a gift finder could also be used in the same way…

Find out more about ECS here. Read answers to the most frequently asked questions from ECS newcomers in one of our previous blog posts here.

Innovative Associates application: Suitable Amazon.co.uk products on YouTube videos

An Associate of Amazon.co.jp has created a cool application with the help of Amazon E-Commerce Services (ECS) which we would like present to you. This innovative Associates application enables any Amazon Associate to display suitable Amazon.co.uk (or Amazon.com, Amazon.fr, etc) products on YouTube videos. The process takes just a few minutes and absolutely no programming knowledge is required.

Please see below an example. On top of the video from the band Funker Vogt you find relevant Amazon.co.uk product placements.

How can you use this application as well and earn money with it?

Quite simple. Read on to find out how you can display Amazon products using your own private videos in just a matter of minutes and without any programming knowledge and can earn money for clicks on each product as part of the Amazon.co.uk Associates programme:

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Amazon E-Commerce Services (ECS)

Have you ever heard of Amazon Web Services? Or are you already using these successfully for your online activities? If not, then read this blog post to discover what AWS and ECS have to offer. Since Amazon Web Services offers you such a wide variety of uses, in future blogs we will be presenting examples of applications that are already using Amazon Web Services worldwide.

Read answers to the most frequently asked questions from AWS newcomers here:

What are Amazon Web Services (AWS)?

AWS (Amazon Web Services) is an Amazon service that provides direct access to Amazon’s technology platforms. With AWS you can create websites, applications or tools based on the solid and reliable Amazon platform.

The Amazon.co.uk Associate area of Amazon Web Services is called Amazon E-Commerce Services (or ECS for short). With ECS Amazon.co.uk Associates can access Amazon.co.uk product information and the functions of the Amazon.co.uk website at no cost and in real time. 

Examples of Amazon.co.uk product information:

ECS enables Amazon.co.uk Associates to access the catalogue information for Amazon.co.uk (and all other Amazon websites) via an interface. This information includes:

-         Title, author, artist, actor, etc.

-         Cover (various sizes)

-         Latest price (Amazon and Marketplace prices)

-         Reviews and customer reviews

-         And much, much more...

Examples of functions of the Amazon.co.uk website:

ECS enables Amazon.co.uk Associates to access the functions of the Amazon website, such as:

-         Amazon shopping basket on your website (Remote Shopping Cart)

-         List of similar items to the item requested (Similarities)

-         List of accessories to the item requested

-         Amazon ordering process on your website with your personal touches (Co-Branded Order Pipeline)

-         And much, much more...

How can I benefit from AWS and ECS?

Amazon Associates and website owners – Expand your service

As a website owner you can integrate the functions and content of Amazon.co.uk (and all other Amazon websites) seamlessly into your own website. You can update your website with the latest information about Amazon products, sell Amazon products on your website and create customised links and dynamic advertisements.

Web developers – Expand your skills and earn money at the same time

Many of the more than 180,000 AWS developers use Amazon Web Services to develop efficient and productive applications for other Amazon customers, retailers, Associates and website owners.

How can I register for Amazon Web Services?

Sign up to Amazon Web Services free of charge here and receive:

-         Free access to Amazon E-Commerce Services

-         Free AWS newsletter

-         Access to an innovative developer community

-         Ideas and tools for new marketable applications

Where do I find out more about AWS and ECS?

To find out further information about Amazon Web Services (and to register free to use Amazon Web Services) click here:

http://www.amazon.com/webservices

Further articles and sample codes can be found here:

http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/kbcategory.jspa?categoryID=5

For technical queries contact the AWS developer forum:

http://aws.amazon.com/forums

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