Amazon Feed-builder

June 12, 2006 1:55 PM

So. Paul Bausch of all sorts of fame rolled-out an update to his amazing Amazon feed-builder. What's the big deal? Well, I'm a big fan of Wendell Berry and Craig Thompson, of Naguib Mahfouz and books about New Urbanism... and now, with the help of PB's delicious feed-builder, I'll be notified whenever something new comes from any of these authors or meets the "New Urbanism" search criteria, so I can add them to my Amazon wish list... and I think that's pretty darn cool. Add that to Amazon's pre-existing wish list feeds, which let you monitor other people's wish lists for additions ( you can find a wish list's feed on its "home" page ), and I'm in heaven.

( As a direct result of the feeds I subscribed to this weekend, my Amazon wish list has grown from 1600 to more than 1800 items. I blame Paul... he's such an enabler! )
posted by silusGROK (17 comments total)

Be aware that the wishlists bog down after 5000 items per list, and essentially stop functioning at 9999. Yes, I'll admit it...I have a problem. (The problem would be over 20,000 items on 11 different Amazon wishlists. They all used to be on just two, one on Amazon.com and one on Amazon.de, but not long after hitting 10,000 I had to start splitting lists.)

Sorry for being off topic, I just thought I'd pass the warning along, for the future reference of other wishlist enthusiasts.
posted by jann at 2:43 PM on June 12, 2006

Here's a "wishlist hack" that solves the problem: my wishlist.
posted by sonofsamiam at 2:52 PM on June 12, 2006

Hehe.

But I don't want _everything_!

Sheesh!

And 5000! ... good heavens, Jann... and I thought I was crazy.

: )
posted by silusGROK at 2:57 PM on June 12, 2006

Interesting, thanks. I tried it for Henry Holt and Company, my favorite publisher who release about a dozen books a month, but it didn't seem to do a good job. Compare the feed created by feed builder versus the titles released this month (or any month) from Henry Holts website. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.
posted by stbalbach at 3:02 PM on June 12, 2006

if only this feature could be added to the web site of my favorite bookstore.
posted by cubby at 3:06 PM on June 12, 2006

stbalbach: sadly, I don't think that Amazon handles publisher information very well. I've never been able to find titles using a publisher keyword — even using Amazon's search entry.
posted by silusGROK at 3:22 PM on June 12, 2006

This is interesting, but what I've been wanting for a while is a way to track the sales rank of a particular item over time--either through an RSS feed or some automated way of appending it to a spreadsheet or similar. There was a website that promised this but it didn't seem to work. If anybody has a tip, I'd appreciate it.
posted by muckster at 3:26 PM on June 12, 2006

This idea of aggregated wishlists makes me feel strangely uncomfortable.
posted by taursir at 3:31 PM on June 12, 2006

What's the point of putting thousands of things on your wishlist? OCD much? You're obviously never going to get them all, and no-one who's looking at it to get you a gift is going to know what the hell you want -- more likely they'll choose something you added years ago and forgot about. The whole idea of wishlists is that they're a list of stuff you actually want, not just an indiscriminate collection of stuff you once saw and thought was neat.
posted by reklaw at 3:50 PM on June 12, 2006

The feed builder's pretty nice, but I'm finding it hard to concentrate on it now that I know people have more than 10,000 1000 100 10 items on their wishlist... fascinating.
posted by jack_mo at 4:50 PM on June 12, 2006

a way to track the sales rank of a particular item over time

There used to be AmazonScan.com (by Philip "Pud" Kaplan, the man behind FuckedCompany.com) which was the best, but it now appears defunct -- Book Rank Monitoring Service charges money for the service. Then there is The Amazon Historical Pricing web service. Another one is Rank Forest, free sign-up, pay-premium. Amazon Sales Rank watcher appears to be commercial software. All of these are geared towards authors wanting to track a few select, and not the person who is curious about a wide range of items (as AmazonScan used to be).

If anyone has other links please let us know.
posted by stbalbach at 4:59 PM on June 12, 2006

I've been wanting for a while is a way to track the sales rank of a particular item over time

Junglescan.com used to do it, but they appear to be down.
posted by mathowie at 5:05 PM on June 12, 2006

muckster, there are several sites that will track the sales rank of Amazon products. Examples include RankForest, TicTap and TitleZ.
posted by jeffbarr at 5:54 PM on June 12, 2006

Junglescan was what Pud renamed Amazonscan to when the lawyers materialized.
posted by dhartung at 11:12 PM on June 12, 2006

Having things in an Amazon.com wish list is actually better than having the things themselves:

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven amazon.com, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal...

And then there's Mr. Spock, from Amok Time

After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical. But it is often true.

posted by George_Spiggott at 11:29 PM on June 12, 2006

Thank you--Rankforest and TitleZ look like just the thing.
posted by muckster at 7:50 AM on June 13, 2006

I only have 1800 items in my wishlist ... I collect books, and I'm always thinking about new books I'd like to own or read... so they're added on a whim. Yeah, I'll never buy them all ( I only own 600 books now, so 1400 books more would be quite the change ), but I use it as my own personal book store... I window shop my wish list frequently. It's nice, inexpensive distraction... well, until I blow $200 on some books that suddenly become must-haves.

As for people buying me things off of it, they have in the past... so it can't be so daunting. But what I really hope they'll do is surf it, not unlike a blog, as I think it's a telling peek into my mind.

... but I digress.
posted by silusGROK at 8:33 AM on June 13, 2006