Browse Amazon, Randomly

#1

Post by hmason » Thu, Jan 10, 2013, 5:39 PM UTC

Browse Amazon, Randomly
bookbookgoose.com

Re: Browse Amazon, Randomly

#2

Post by whelps » Thu, Jan 10, 2013, 6:04 PM UTC

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.

Re: Browse Amazon, Randomly

#3

Post by bertomartin » Thu, Jan 10, 2013, 6:26 PM UTC

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

Re: Browse Amazon, Randomly

#4

Post by bertomartin » Thu, Jan 10, 2013, 6:28 PM UTC

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

Re: Browse Amazon, Randomly

#5

Post by felipebueno » Thu, Jan 10, 2013, 6:38 PM UTC

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).

Re: Browse Amazon, Randomly

#6

Post by jordanmessina » Thu, Jan 10, 2013, 6:46 PM UTC

Very cool. Somewhat similar to my book discovery app 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?

Re: Browse Amazon, Randomly

#7

Post by hmason » Thu, Jan 10, 2013, 6:54 PM UTC

jordanmessina wrote: post #6

Very cool. Somewhat similar to my book discovery app 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?

Both, actually. The API is too slow to use live for this app.

Re: Browse Amazon, Randomly

#8

Post by jordanmessina » Thu, Jan 10, 2013, 6:59 PM UTC

hmason wrote: post #7

jordanmessina wrote: post #6

Very cool. Somewhat similar to my book discovery app 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?

Both, actually. The API is too slow to use live for this app.

Nice, any plans to do more with it?

Re: Browse Amazon, Randomly

#9

Post by hmason » Thu, Jan 10, 2013, 7:00 PM UTC

jordanmessina wrote: post #8

hmason wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both, actually. The API is too slow to use live for this app.

Nice, any plans to do more with it?

Yes! This was really just to establish the base case -- is randomly 'walking' through all books available interesting?

Re: Browse Amazon, Randomly

#10

Post by marquis » Thu, Jan 10, 2013, 7:08 PM UTC

whelps wrote: post #2

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…

it's probably a play on duckduckgo.