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26 August 2008

Shelfari bought by Amazon

I just noticed this blog post; so Amazon finally bought one of the new wave of literary social-networking sites I recently listed. I wonder whether they'll now do with Shelfari the sort of thing I suggested for aNobii.

I guess this might be a blow for LibraryThing, GoodReads and aNobii (but it might actually be the kiss of death for Shelfari if it's reduced to an Amazon shopwindow). However, as these things go, we might now see a move from an Amazon competitor to buy or partner with one of the other services.

Me, I don't care: the only service with a serious API is GoodReads, so I'll stick with it :)

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posted by GiacomoL @ 3:58 PM   0 comments links to this post

21 August 2008

How much is your bookshelf worth?

Just for fun, I wrote a little python script that will pull a feed of books from GoodReads and calculate their total worth according to Amazon.

Requirements:

The script allows for shelf-specific filtering and supports different Amazon locales, with output configurable to be in any currency. Due to a limitation in the GoodReads API, it will estimate only the first 200 books.

You can see it in action using the web-based version

Download: GR_Estimator 1.1

  • Release 1.1
    • Added support for multiple currencies
    • fixed a few bugs
  • Release 1.0
    • Initial release

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posted by GiacomoL @ 6:40 PM   0 comments links to this post

12 August 2008

Amazon should buy aNobii and let people use their Associate ID

My wishlist is growing exponentially since I started browsing my friends' pages on aNobii. It works better than the usual "spookily accurate" recommendation systems you find on shopping sites, because your friends' ratings carry much more weight than the simple act of buying an object (which is over-rated by bookshops, since they often don't have actual feedback).

I guess aNobii tries to make its money acting as referral from those same bookshops, I wonder how much they actually make. It would be really powerful if they allowed people to have their own referral ID embedded in "buy" links, so that I make money if my friend buys a book I recommended. I guess that, for this to really happen, Amazon should buy out aNobii (a small Hong Kong startup, from what I understand) and possibly rewrite it from scratch, but it would be a fantastic move.

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posted by GiacomoL @ 11:37 AM   1 comments links to this post