3 ms·

This is a really cool idea - and it shouldn't be too hard to get it to talk to recommendations, personalisation & wishlist if those APIs still accessible as a w

by jrabone 14y ago

This is a really cool idea - and it shouldn't be too hard to get it to talk to recommendations, personalisation & wishlist if those APIs still accessible as a web service? However, I haven't used the E-commerce service for a long time and I think it might have been turned off or replaced with something more advertising-oriented.

ErikAugust 14y ago
I think that's what it does: http://randomshopper.tumblr.com/post/35454415921/randomized-consumerism http://randomshopper.tumblr.com/post/35454415921/randomized-... It also bought him a Chomsky book on Linguistics and a electronic music CD. And if the bot did that on it's own that'd be a little too spooky.
- jrabone 14y ago
  No, the article says right there it uses search results (presumably by scraping). ECS used to be WSDL - real easy to drive from eg. PHP back in the day. I wouldn't want to be the poor sod parsing the retail website HTML (although perhaps the last redesign improved it).
  - ErikAugust 14y ago
    "Every time I run it, I give it a set budget, say $50. It grabs a random word from the Wordnik API, then runs an Amazon search based on that word." You're right.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - dariusk 14y ago
    I'm actually not parsing the HTML at all. Not really. I'm using PhantomJS, which is a headless web browser. Each time I load a page, I inject jQuery and just do a simple JS command like $('#whatevertheIDisfortheform').submit(); It's the equivalent of opening up your console on each page and interacting with it via jQuery rather than a mouse and keyboard.
    - jrabone 14y ago
      So something has parsed the HTML - but at least you didn't have to reinvent that wheel :) Still, you might want to look at https://affiliate-program.amazon.co.uk/gp/advertising/api/detail/main.html https://affiliate-program.amazon.co.uk/gp/advertising/api/de... - the Product Advertising API looks like the latest evolution of the E-Commerce Service API and might let you do things like stop the bot from making duplicate similar purchases, or accidentally fulfilling your wishlist.

by jrabone 14y ago

ErikAugust 14y ago

I think that's what it does: http://randomshopper.tumblr.com/post/35454415921/randomized-consumerism http://randomshopper.tumblr.com/post/35454415921/randomized-... It also bought him a Chomsky book on Linguistics and a electronic music CD. And if the bot did that on it's own that'd be a little too spooky.

jrabone 14y ago
No, the article says right there it uses search results (presumably by scraping). ECS used to be WSDL - real easy to drive from eg. PHP back in the day. I wouldn't want to be the poor sod parsing the retail website HTML (although perhaps the last redesign improved it).
- ErikAugust 14y ago
  "Every time I run it, I give it a set budget, say $50. It grabs a random word from the Wordnik API, then runs an Amazon search based on that word." You're right.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- dariusk 14y ago
  I'm actually not parsing the HTML at all. Not really. I'm using PhantomJS, which is a headless web browser. Each time I load a page, I inject jQuery and just do a simple JS command like $('#whatevertheIDisfortheform').submit(); It's the equivalent of opening up your console on each page and interacting with it via jQuery rather than a mouse and keyboard.
  - jrabone 14y ago
    So something has parsed the HTML - but at least you didn't have to reinvent that wheel :) Still, you might want to look at https://affiliate-program.amazon.co.uk/gp/advertising/api/detail/main.html https://affiliate-program.amazon.co.uk/gp/advertising/api/de... - the Product Advertising API looks like the latest evolution of the E-Commerce Service API and might let you do things like stop the bot from making duplicate similar purchases, or accidentally fulfilling your wishlist.