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PriceZombie is shutting down

pricezombie.com

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Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#51

Post by AznHisoka »

fweespee_ch wrote: post #47
patio11 wrote: post #23

Our appeals to Amazon affiliate program administrators (associates@amazon.com) and even Jeff Bezos (jeff@amazon.com) were either ignored or answered incompletely, leaving us wondering if anyone was listening I was once in a room with Dave McClure and a ~50ish companies he had funded. He announced that he was taking a tour of partnership teams at two members of AppAmaGooBookSoft and asked for who wanted to come with.…

I'd strongly urge that in Amazon's case this advice is functionally irrelevant as they aren't a reliable business partner that reacts in a consistent way when it comes to MWS operations regardless of who you know that works there unless its Bezos himself.

I agree. The advice by patio is generally sound, though in this specific scenario, I don't think Amazon would ever care. PriceZombie offers negligible profit compared to the billions Amazon makes. Even spending 0.5 seconds on their case is a waste of their time.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#52

Post by ValentineC »

mattlutze wrote: post #22

The issue here wasn't that they were just using Amazon's API and then lost access. The Amazon TOS says don't store and display our old prices and, per the post, that's what PriceZombie was doing. The lesson is that if you're doing something in violation of a partner's TOS and start to negatively effect their business, the partner is well within their rights to cut off access. Whether other businesses have or haven't…

  The Amazon TOS says don't store and display our old prices
How is Amazon fine with CamelCamelCamel [1] then? It seems like they make money off Amazon affiliate links too.

[1] http://camelcamelcamel.com/blog/how-our-price-checking-syste...

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#53

Post by Lawtonfogle »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #25
Etheryte wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point here is not that they're relying on a third party, but the fact that Amazon banned them from the api while their competitors/alternatives can still use it without constraint.

Isn't that a bit like complaining to the police officer who pulled you over that other people were speeding, too?

The problem is that unequally applies rules are often intermingled with biases. While a single instance of 'what about that other guy' isn't a worthwhile plea, if you can show a trend as to who gets pulled based on something other than speeding, you have a problem.

In business, it is less of an issue because business doesn't need to be fair to the same standard of law. There are still certain laws and protect groups and such, but the bar is still much lower than in law. The complaint of unfairness can be valid, but also pointless.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#54

Post by DaveWalk »

gizmodo59 wrote: post #27
patio11 wrote: post #23

Our appeals to Amazon affiliate program administrators (associates@amazon.com) and even Jeff Bezos (jeff@amazon.com) were either ignored or answered incompletely, leaving us wondering if anyone was listening I was once in a room with Dave McClure and a ~50ish companies he had funded. He announced that he was taking a tour of partnership teams at two members of AppAmaGooBookSoft and asked for who wanted to come with.…

"identify an actual human inside the mothership" This is so valuable. I was intrigued by who wrote this and no wonder it is Patrick. (I highly recommend this article by him: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-pro... ). My two cents: Talk to human. Develop social skills they matter more than what you think.

Thank you, Patrick, for the cool splash of water.

My heart goes out to PriceZombie, a tool I really liked using. It makes me wonder, are contracts just passé in today's web/app economy? Do founders not care about having the rug pulled out from underneath their business at any time?

I of course understand if this is a side project, not a full time job, and can't be given 100% focus. But I feel like I woke up from a bad dream: everywhere I look, it's the same App Store model: Apple, GooglePlay, Amazon, Steam...

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#55

Post by jijji »

If your objective is to write a crawler that parses pricing information from a third party web site, then write the crawler. Relying on the third party to provide a consistent API that can be remotely communicated with is setting yourself up for failure. These companies can quickly ban you from their platform when using their API. At least by writing the crawler yourself, you're making it much more difficult for them to do this. Another lesson is that building a business model around the availability of a third party is also a recipe for failure.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#56

Post by donkeyd »

patio11 wrote: post #23

Our appeals to Amazon affiliate program administrators (associates@amazon.com) and even Jeff Bezos (jeff@amazon.com) were either ignored or answered incompletely, leaving us wondering if anyone was listening I was once in a room with Dave McClure and a ~50ish companies he had funded. He announced that he was taking a tour of partnership teams at two members of AppAmaGooBookSoft and asked for who wanted to come with.…

For a while I worked for a company that had a direct line to engineers at all of their suppliers (which they often earned by only calling with the right questions). This caused them to get issues fixed quickly and competently, sometimes with them supplying parts of the fix.

I've since returned to working for companies that rely on first line support, and it's much harder to get the support you need, so I totally agree with this point.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#57

Post by forrestthewoods »

mattlutze wrote: post #22

The issue here wasn't that they were just using Amazon's API and then lost access. The Amazon TOS says don't store and display our old prices and, per the post, that's what PriceZombie was doing. The lesson is that if you're doing something in violation of a partner's TOS and start to negatively effect their business, the partner is well within their rights to cut off access. Whether other businesses have or haven't…

That's not the lesson at all. Even if you follow the TOS those terms can change overnight and your business will die in the same way.

If you are 100% reliant on another company you're entire existence depends on that relationship.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#58

Post by AznHisoka »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #41

> Press: If you're interested in running a news story about our situation and why Amazon is afraid of services that comparison shop Amazon's prices with other stores, please contact us at support@pricezombie.com Yeah, that's really going to help your situation. 1) You built your product on top of someone else's service. That's always a rocky road. It is common to read about other companies in your shoes. 2) In the ti…

Definitely not defending them, but sometime's initiating contact can be a tricky thing. Because they may not have paid attention to you, and now you're basically told them "Hi, I exist!". Then later in a meeting, someone in Amazon says "Oh hey.. this site exists. I didn't know that... isn't that a violation of our TOS..??"

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#60

Post by Bhullnatik »

ValentineC wrote: post #52
mattlutze wrote: post #22

The issue here wasn't that they were just using Amazon's API and then lost access. The Amazon TOS says don't store and display our old prices and, per the post, that's what PriceZombie was doing. The lesson is that if you're doing something in violation of a partner's TOS and start to negatively effect their business, the partner is well within their rights to cut off access. Whether other businesses have or haven't…

The Amazon TOS says don't store and display our old prices How is Amazon fine with CamelCamelCamel [1] then? It seems like they make money off Amazon affiliate links too. [1] http://camelcamelcamel.com/blog/how-our-price-checking-syste...

From the parent comment:

  Whether other businesses have or haven't been slapped down is only a secondary question.
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