Amazon Web Services Blog

New ECS Release: 2005-07-27

Second Important Note: Documentation and Release Notes links have been fixed.

Important Note: This item has been changed since it was first posted. The WSDL version was corrected, and the information about searching based on availability has been removed. The searching capability worked fine on our test servers but did not work as expected when we put it into production. We will fix this problem as soon as possible; watch this blog for updated information.

We have rolled out a new release of ECS today. The WSDL file is dated 2005-07-26 (a previous version of this posting listed it as 2005-07-27, which was incorrect).

New features in this release include access to additional product images (including color swatches), spelling correction in ItemSearch, inclusion of the Subject field in the data returned for books, inclusion of the MPN (Manufacturer's Part Number) for each item, better search results using so-called binned searches, similar products, new releases, and top sellers returned as part of the results of certain shopping cart operations, access to new releases and top sellers for each browse node, better support for the Classical Music search index, and documented support for the return of compressed (gzipped) XML responses, along with a number of important bug fixes.

For full information please consult the Release Notes and the Programmer's Guide. Please note that early versions of these documents contained references to the incorrect WSDL version and to the searching based on availability.

It is worth noting that most (if not all) of these features were added to the product as as result of feedback that we received from posts on the discussion board on in a weekly chat session.

 

TitleZ - Book Trends for Publishers

TitleZ retrieves current and historic sales rank data for Amazon book titles, displaying trends in graphic and numeric form for each analysis and decision making.

The product is targeted at publishers, acquisition editors, agents, marketers, and authors; it can be used to make competitive buying, selling, and publishing decisions. Learn more about how it appeals to each type of user here.

TitleZ is currently in beta testing and is available now for a free trial.

Mix, Match, and Mutate

The newest issue of Business Week includes an article called Mix, Match, and Mutate. As the author says, "hordes of volunteer programmers are taking it upon themselves to combine and remix the data and services of unrelated, even competing sites." In the AWS world we've already seen this happen with cool applications such as  Book Burro, Zollage, Actor Tracker, and Amazon Light.

If you've written a similar application which uses an AWS service, perhaps we don't know about it. Send us some mail (awseditor@amazon.com) or post a comment to the blog, and we'll take a look.

Unlocking XML's Secret Powers

Vance McCarthy tells us how to Unlock XML's Secret Powers, providing 5 handy tips.

MSDN Web Services Development Center

Recognizing the ever-growing importance of Web Services, Microsoft has consolidated a lot of useful developer information within the Web Services and Other Distributed Technologies Developer Center on MSDN.

ZipKeys -- Simplify the Creation of Amazon Marketplace Listings

This application is a bit different than most of the others that have  been covered in this blog, but it should be of interest nevertheless.

ZipKeys simplifies repetitive data entry tasks. It can be used as a customer support tool, making it easier to reply to emails with canned replies or "blurbs." It can also be used to speed up the process of creating listings in the Amazon Marketplace. To see how this is done, watch the demo.

Hiking Outpost

The Hiking Outpost site blends Amazon product data pulled from ECS with camping and trail information taken from all over the web into one convenient and very useful interface. The site also uses the ECS Remote Shopping Cart.

Amazon Store for Dot Net Nuke

Dot Net Nuke is a free, open-source content management system (CMS) for the Microsoft ASP.Net platform.

The WCC Amazon Portal is an instant Amazon store for DotNetNuke. Using AWS, product data and images are integrated seamlessly into DotNetNuke pages for a professional presentation and a smooth user experience. the product supports every locale supported by AWS, it includes a complete shopping cart implementation, and is fully customizable.

The Live Demo shows the product in action.

Developer Token Validation

We are in the process of rolling out Developer Token validation for ECS 3.0 today. As we have been saying for a while now, if you don't pass in a valid developer token, your ECS requests are going to fail.

Read more at the Developer Token Validation FAQ.

XSLT Programming Tip

An XSLT tip: Implement a loop using recursion with XSLT. You can find many more interesting articles and tips related to XML and XSLT in the IBM Developerworks XML Zone.