[thechat] Book list was: baby names

[martin.p.burns at uk.pwcglobal.com]

Memo from Martin P Burns of PricewaterhouseCoopers

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It's actually easier than that.

First you need the Associates' Tag for the account. Mine is martin043

Then go to the page of the Amazon product eg:
<http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385426259/026-3078728-0357221>

Let's dissect this. Most of this is pseudo-directory stuff - passing
parameters to the system using slashes as the delimiter. Actually
the real executable file is probably:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos

ASIN denotes the Amazon catalogue. It's actually very, very similar
to ISBN (identical for books)

0385426259 is the catalogue number (it's also the ISBN without the
dashes) - Amazon uses the same catalogue for .com and .co.uk
(and I imagine everywhere else). If you get a 'no such item' page,
it means that Amazon don't sell that item from that site.

026-3078728-0357221 is session info

So the important bit is everything up to the ref to the specific product:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385426259/

If you hit return now, you'll get all the session stuff back, so don't
do that. All you have to do to get purchases credited to an Associate
is add their id tag like so:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385426259/martin043

So go to that URL (the system will then add all the session info) and
if you buy that item, I'll get a (very small) commission.

I don't know if Associates work across national sites the way that
catalogues do, so we may be restricted to commission from the .com

The other thing is that the Associates' agreement is quite sniffy about
who gets to be an associate. While you can play this game with any
item once you have a tag, you have to tell them that you will be making
recommendation links from a web page (not email), and supply the
site's URL. You also have to agree not to have links to a competitor
on that page (so you couldn't do "buy it at _Amazon_ ($10), _B&N_
($9.50) or _FatBrain_ ($10.50)").

How much they check these things, I don't know.

Cheers
Martin




Please respond to thechat at lists.evolt.org

Sent by:  thechat-admin at lists.evolt.org

To:   "'thechat at lists.evolt.org'" <thechat at lists.evolt.org>
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Subject:  RE: [thechat] Book list was: baby names


I think I'm hearing that we need one of the admins to set up an account at
Amazon ... and then write a (CF?  PHP?  Perl?) form that lets us input an
Amazon book reference and then generates a link to the Amazon book through
the 'evolt account' so that evolt gets a few pennies when we buy books and
music through Amazon?





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