5 ms·

Browse Amazon, Randomly

32 points by hmason 14y ago

bertomartin 14y ago
duckduckgo? Anyways, I actually found this useful. What might be a good addition is current ratings (if Amazon expose such information). Another thing, put the "back" button next to the "next" button; improves usability
- whatusername 14y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck,_duck,_goose http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck,_duck,_goose
bertomartin 14y ago
Another thing, make an obvious link to the amazon page. something like "see it on amazon.com"
- logn 14y ago
  And why not add your referral code too?
felipebueno 14y ago
It's pretty cool! But I didn't like the name too =p... One more thing: 'n' and 'b' shortcuts not working on the Firefox (17.0.1).
whelps 14y ago
I understand where the name came from, but bookbookgoose just doesn't work for me. Its just too long and unwieldy for me. As for the service itself, I am not sure what type of customer this is servicing. Are there people out there that are trying to find random books to read without any context (i.e. subject matter, recommendations from others, etc.)? Now, I think this would be a lot more useful if you could perhaps do the random thing but filtered by some criteria that makes it relevant to the user. So, for example, I want to read about 'javascript' and I search through random javascript books. It would also help to display the amazon rankings and other stats.
- marquis 14y ago
  it's probably a play on duckduckgo.
  - hmason 14y ago
    It's a play on "duck duck goose", the children's game. The similarity to duckduckgo was unintentional, but I like it. I actually wanted to call it "bookroulette", but all permutations of that domain were taken.
    - lrm 14y ago
      I like the name. I immediately knew it was a play on duck duck goose.
    - kingkool68 14y ago
      I own the domain name randomamazon.com. I always wanted to get around to doing something like this.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
  - CrankyPants 14y ago
    You could probably use a vacation away from tech. Not trying to be mean. Just sayin'.
jordanmessina 14y ago
Very cool. Somewhat similar to my book discovery app http://quotab.ly http://quotab.ly (discover via random quotes). Where did you end up getting your data? Did you scrape Amazon or are you using their API?
- hmason 14y ago
  Both, actually. The API is too slow to use live for this app.
  - jordanmessina 14y ago
    Nice, any plans to do more with it?
    - hmason 14y ago
      Yes! This was really just to establish the base case -- is randomly 'walking' through all books available interesting?
untangle 14y ago
Love it. Can you please add filters for "by-genre" and "kindle-only"? Please..
crisnoble 14y ago
This is pretty awesome, it is amazing to see all the weird titles out there. Is anyone else surprised by the amount of: "This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures..." books for sale on Amazon?
- Wingman4l7 14y ago
  Google "Amazon ebook spam" and you'll see several articles about it -- their self-publishing system has really gotten hammered with it. In this case, it sounds like the content is just copied from the public domain.
nathanb 14y ago
Fair warning: the first title that came up for me was NSFW.
- zipop 14y ago
  That would have been good to know before I started clicking. DANG!
gourneau 14y ago
I really love this! I opened it and just jam on the next key (n). Use this little snippet to set it to auto-next mode, for a great screensaver. Edit - here is the screensaver https://github.com/gourneau/WebSaver https://github.com/gourneau/WebSaver setInterval(function(){$("#book_next").click()}, 500) Watching all of books fly by is wondrous to me because it feels like it is painting some weird version of conscious reality. Hilary could you please add this bit of code so for auto advancing mode via the query string. function getParameterByName(name) { var match = RegExp('[?&]' + name + '=([^&]*)').exec(window.location.search); return match && decodeURIComponent(match[1].replace(/\+/g, ' ')); } if (getParameterByName("auto")){ setInterval(function(){$("#book_next").click()}, getParameterByName("auto")) } It would work like this, where 500 is the number of milliseconds. http://www.bookbookgoose.com/?auto=500 http://www.bookbookgoose.com/?auto=500
- hmason 14y ago
  Thanks. I just deployed this update. Have fun!
  - bhoomit 14y ago
    Hey, there seems to be a bug for slow internet connections, it shows the same image for the next books when the next book image is not loaded.
jaydub 14y ago
I like it, can you add random browsing within a category (e.g. I want to browse random humor books)
jaydub 14y ago
I like it, can you add random browsing within a category (e.g. I want to browse random humor books)
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
strangestchild 14y ago
This is really great - love the idea. Just in case you hadn't spotted, I think there's a punctuation bug whereby characters are sometimes omitted, although it doesn't happen all the time. Not a big deal though. Example: Correctly punctuated original: http://tinyurl.com/b6sbozh http://tinyurl.com/b6sbozh Bookbookgoose ignores the apostrophes: http://imgur.com/4U9Ow http://imgur.com/4U9Ow [EDIT: Dropbox link was broken - using imgur instead]
ubojan 14y ago
great idea, I really like this site! I found a little glitch, it happens when image is too high. Here is a screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/IzhRF.jpg http://i.imgur.com/IzhRF.jpg

32 points by hmason 14y ago

duckduckgo? Anyways, I actually found this useful. What might be a good addition is current ratings (if Amazon expose such information). Another thing, put the "back" button next to the "next" button; improves usability

whatusername 14y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck,_duck,_goose http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck,_duck,_goose

bertomartin 14y ago

Another thing, make an obvious link to the amazon page. something like "see it on amazon.com"

logn 14y ago
And why not add your referral code too?

felipebueno 14y ago

It's pretty cool! But I didn't like the name too =p... One more thing: 'n' and 'b' shortcuts not working on the Firefox (17.0.1).

whelps 14y ago

I understand where the name came from, but bookbookgoose just doesn't work for me. Its just too long and unwieldy for me. As for the service itself, I am not sure what type of customer this is servicing. Are there people out there that are trying to find random books to read without any context (i.e. subject matter, recommendations from others, etc.)? Now, I think this would be a lot more useful if you could perhaps do the random thing but filtered by some criteria that makes it relevant to the user. So, for example, I want to read about 'javascript' and I search through random javascript books. It would also help to display the amazon rankings and other stats.

marquis 14y ago
it's probably a play on duckduckgo.
- hmason 14y ago
  It's a play on "duck duck goose", the children's game. The similarity to duckduckgo was unintentional, but I like it. I actually wanted to call it "bookroulette", but all permutations of that domain were taken.
  - lrm 14y ago
    I like the name. I immediately knew it was a play on duck duck goose.
  - kingkool68 14y ago
    I own the domain name randomamazon.com. I always wanted to get around to doing something like this.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- CrankyPants 14y ago
  You could probably use a vacation away from tech. Not trying to be mean. Just sayin'.

jordanmessina 14y ago

Very cool. Somewhat similar to my book discovery app http://quotab.ly http://quotab.ly (discover via random quotes). Where did you end up getting your data? Did you scrape Amazon or are you using their API?

hmason 14y ago
Both, actually. The API is too slow to use live for this app.
- jordanmessina 14y ago
  Nice, any plans to do more with it?
  - hmason 14y ago
    Yes! This was really just to establish the base case -- is randomly 'walking' through all books available interesting?

untangle 14y ago

Love it. Can you please add filters for "by-genre" and "kindle-only"? Please..

crisnoble 14y ago

This is pretty awesome, it is amazing to see all the weird titles out there. Is anyone else surprised by the amount of: "This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures..." books for sale on Amazon?

Wingman4l7 14y ago
Google "Amazon ebook spam" and you'll see several articles about it -- their self-publishing system has really gotten hammered with it. In this case, it sounds like the content is just copied from the public domain.

nathanb 14y ago

Fair warning: the first title that came up for me was NSFW.

zipop 14y ago
That would have been good to know before I started clicking. DANG!

gourneau 14y ago

I really love this! I opened it and just jam on the next key (n). Use this little snippet to set it to auto-next mode, for a great screensaver. Edit - here is the screensaver https://github.com/gourneau/WebSaver https://github.com/gourneau/WebSaver setInterval(function(){$("#book_next").click()}, 500) Watching all of books fly by is wondrous to me because it feels like it is painting some weird version of conscious reality. Hilary could you please add this bit of code so for auto advancing mode via the query string. function getParameterByName(name) { var match = RegExp('[?&]' + name + '=([^&]*)').exec(window.location.search); return match && decodeURIComponent(match[1].replace(/\+/g, ' ')); } if (getParameterByName("auto")){ setInterval(function(){$("#book_next").click()}, getParameterByName("auto")) } It would work like this, where 500 is the number of milliseconds. http://www.bookbookgoose.com/?auto=500 http://www.bookbookgoose.com/?auto=500

hmason 14y ago
Thanks. I just deployed this update. Have fun!
- bhoomit 14y ago
  Hey, there seems to be a bug for slow internet connections, it shows the same image for the next books when the next book image is not loaded.

jaydub 14y ago

I like it, can you add random browsing within a category (e.g. I want to browse random humor books)

jaydub 14y ago

I like it, can you add random browsing within a category (e.g. I want to browse random humor books)

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

strangestchild 14y ago

This is really great - love the idea. Just in case you hadn't spotted, I think there's a punctuation bug whereby characters are sometimes omitted, although it doesn't happen all the time. Not a big deal though. Example: Correctly punctuated original: http://tinyurl.com/b6sbozh http://tinyurl.com/b6sbozh Bookbookgoose ignores the apostrophes: http://imgur.com/4U9Ow http://imgur.com/4U9Ow [EDIT: Dropbox link was broken - using imgur instead]

ubojan 14y ago

great idea, I really like this site! I found a little glitch, it happens when image is too high. Here is a screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/IzhRF.jpg http://i.imgur.com/IzhRF.jpg