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The Internet Businesses

Amazon Goes Wiki 120

Posted by Zonk from the no-ruining-this-like-the-last-one dept.
StWaldo writes "Amazon.com has added a 'ProductWiki' to some of their item pages. Wikified items seem to be limited to certain categories, DVDs being one un-wikied realm. Adding Wikiness to the site is just the latest in new participatory activities Amazon has adopted, along with tags and customer discussions." From the article: "So Amazon's gradually allowing you, along with your Wish List, your purchases, your clickstream, and, if you sell anything on Amazon, how good your reputation is--to build up a pretty detailed database of what you like (or don't) and what's important to you. I don't know what Amazon will do with this--fortunately, it seems to have a pretty light touch with how it uses what it knows about you--or what it will allow us to do with all this data. But as it grows, it could become a pretty powerful profile."
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Amazon Goes Wiki More

Amazon Goes Wiki

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  • Ah, but ... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Grumpy Troll ( 790026 ) on Saturday November 26, 2005 @08:15AM (#14118347)
    The Amazon spokesman added that the wiki policy required contributions to be strictly NPOV, except for positive comments.

  • Patent? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by strcmp ( 908668 ) on Saturday November 26, 2005 @08:15AM (#14118348)
    I wonder if they will patent Wikis as well.

    • Beware... (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by leonmergen ( 807379 )
      Ignore parent, don't feed the trolls.
      • To be honest, I think that is quite a valid question. I even suspect that they have this covered by one of their patents or they have a patent pending for this. It just seems to be the way Amazon works.
    • Only if it's a One-Click(TM) Wiki link. If you need to click the link twice to go to the next page, they have no claim.

  • I like how they make it out that consumers seem to think that someone cares about what they do and don't appreciate. We all have more crap than we can ever use, but is there really adults out there making "wish lists"? I can't imagine it, but then again...

    • I keep a wishlist in a personal database. That way instead of going "oh, well I can remember that big hit novel by X" I can take a look at the list of novels I -really- want, with the things that might not be as famous as that BIG NOVEL, but I might be more interested in.

      I'd keep it as a "wish list" at one particular site (and did for a while), but it didn't keep all the data I wanted. Besides which, no single website I buy from has all the books I want.

    • Re:consumers: pathetic? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Tim C ( 15259 )
      I keep an Amazon wish list. Given that I have a family, mortgage, loan payments, etc I often don't have the money to buy the things I want when I see them. I also have a poor memory for that sort of thing, so I keep the list so as to not forget what it was that I wanted.

      Of course, I rarely get round to actually buying anything on my list, but that's another matter.

      I also know someone who runs a forum-based website with a fair number of users who keeps an amazon wishlist. From time to time people will buy hi

      • If you find yourself forgetting what you wanted... then maybe you didn't really want it. I find this a great way to reduce my spending. I've become so senile that only the pangs of starvation or the bite of the cold prod me to open my wallet.

    • I'm glad you have more crap than you can use. Can I use some of it? I'm using my crap right now and often find that I don't have any that is not in use at any given moment. I bet your car works most of the time, too.
      • Yes you can. I have a car in the shop right now, a greasel blazer. I would very much like for someone to have it that has the time for it? Interested? Give me some good reasons to give it to you.
    • There is.

      I have a wish-list for Christmas. My friends, girlfriend and family are always asking me what I want and I can't remember so I stuck it all in a wish-list so they could look at it.

      I think it's quite a good idea really.
    • Amazon wish lists are a great way for me to make a note of something with one click, so I don't forget about it later. My parents also insist on it, so they can have something for me under the tree at Christmas. I use it pretty sparingly, because I already have more stuff than I can read/listen to. Also, I have a password protected "roll your own" online database where I log most stuff I don't want to forget.
    • I use it quite often as a "future shopping cart" - items I'd like, but aren't terribly excited about buying just now. Additionally, when the holidays come around and someone asks what I'd like for xmas, it's nice to have a list of electronics/books/etc-related items I don't have yet, but would like.

      Sorry everyone isn't as cool as you.
    • Of course there are, in fact pretty much everyone in my family has one. They're great for two purposes - keeping track of things I'd like to buy for myself (I bunch orders for small things together to save on shipping) and giving others ideas if they want to buy me something. I'd much rather get a $10 CD I actually want for christmas than a $30 plastic piece of crap novelty.
    • Of course there are. I have one, for example - it's a relatively handy way to keep things organised. If I actually want to buy a book or another item on my list, I'll get it from a local bookstore, but for organising purposes, it's quite nice.

    • I keep a wishlist at Amazon, because a lot of times, I can't remember which album (or book, but that's more rare) I was interested in. I don't buy from them for many reasons --their patent policy, for one, and because I would rather buy locally or direct from the publisher-- but the service of having them remember the CD I heard online last weekend (lots of online music sources (like SomaFM [somafm.com]) link directly to Amazon) is great. If I decide to buy some CD's next week, I'll just hop over to Amazon.com, click my

  • And in other news... (Score:1, Redundant)

    by DrYak ( 748999 )
    Tomorrow headline :
    Amazon is granted patent for wikis and files suit against Wikipedia
  • Here's hoping Amazon will give us the means to control access to that profile and, ideally, use it throughout the Web to get what we really want, and avoid what we don't.

    Let's hope :-)
  • "Clickstream"? Who comes up with this stuff? Ick.

    • Re:Clickstream? (Score:5, Funny)

      by shokk ( 187512 ) <ernieoporto @ y a h o o .com> on Saturday November 26, 2005 @09:48AM (#14118599) Homepage Journal
      You should have seen the rejected names list:
          CashStream
          Shut Up and Give Us Your Earnings
          Christmas... Pony Up
          Amazon Love Linky Winky
          Obligatory Purchase
          Comsume, You Gluttons!
          Clown Anus Portal
          Ha! We Have One-Click Patented! You Don't!
          Real-Time Stock Link! Watch Stock Rise After Each Purchase
    • Clickstream Analysis has been a common phrase for a few years now, it seems to be to quite fairly summarize the activity. Unless you think "log grokking" sounds better.

    • Re:Clickstream? (Score:2, Funny)

      by Seumas ( 6865 )
      You think that's bad?

      My company recently purchased another company for several billion dollars and one of the employees sent some sort of an email that was posted on our internal corporate page. It was referring to the culture of our company and how wonderful the language we used was.

      One of the comments they made was that "doubleclicking" an idea is brilliant! Where "doubleclicking" means that you want to look at an idea in more detail or discuss something further. As in "let's take a few minutes to doublec

  • What will they do with all of that data? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Graham1982 ( 933841 ) on Saturday November 26, 2005 @08:35AM (#14118388)
    Somewhere, somehow, there is a hurricane of advertising just waiting to annoy the Hell out of you. They will be marketing things like Star Wars collectables and case mods among other geeky things that you bought or searched for on Amazon. You will not be able to run, you will not be able to hide, Jamster will want to give you the latest Chewbacca ringtone.
    • When I was young, we made mistakes and thankfully most of them are buried in unwritten-history and with college buddies I don't see anymore.

      Nowadays everything you have written on-line or maybe every site you ever visited is recorded.

      Gods know how the Star Wars collectible will come back to haunt you, but I can imagine a scenario during a local election where your opponent shouts, "he collects dolls and plays with them in his bedroom!".

      Reminds of how Representative Claude Pepper of some southern state, lost
  • So what does the wiki have to do with my profile? It seems like it's more specific to the product than to me. And since it's just free prose, it'll be rather difficult to do any funny shazingle to my profile by analyzing my wiki entries.

  • jack thompson? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    yo. someone get me the link to jack thompson's book and the accompanying wiki, so everyone on slashdot can vandalize it ;)

    (disclaimer: i do not condone the use of vandalism when dealing with idiots. still, those pictures were damn funny.)

    • Here! [amazon.com], Thanks to link to (interestingly enough) Wikipedia [wikipedia.org].

      Actually, I think the feature was already up when Jack vs Amazon was discussed, and the comments in the wiki wasn't really flattering at the time. Specifically, link to Wikipedia article which describes in excruciating detail, yet pretty fairly, what a nutball Jack is =) I think it's the same comment it has now.

  • Not the first time for Amazon (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 26, 2005 @08:55AM (#14118430)
    This is not the first time Amazon has experimented with the wiki system. In 2003 they were working on a system called "Review Start". Users were allowed to submit their own review and make additions and edits to the product descriptions. The system was scrapped because Jeff Bezos thought it would hurt search indexing and ultimately Amazon sales. It will be interesting to see how the wiki model works for them.
  • Recommendations and alerts based on past purchases (or browses) seems pretty neat to me. I haven't looked really hard to see if it's there already, but what would make this even better is if it could be actively tuned. This would be particularly useful if it allowed you to remove certain categories. As an example, I recently bought some lesbian literature as a gift ... and now Amazon thinks I love lesbian literature. Whilst faintly amusing, I am not actually a lesbian (though I feel sure I would be if I

    • At least on the German version of the site, there is a link "Why was this recommended to me?", and if you follow that link, you can remove the item that triggered it from your recommendation triggers.

    • if there is a way to remove items that were gifts from contributing to your profile, then it is not super obvious or one click easy. that may be most of the reason the recommendations i get are worthless to me personally. i don't care enough about having Old Man Amazon suggest more things for me to buy, so i never dug too far to figure out how to remove items or flag them as having been gifts.
      does it not add them to your profile if you ship them to another address? i only used that a few times, but i never
    • Oh, I get it. That book on lesbians was a gift. Wink. I went through a similarly painful period where my recommendations were embarassing after ordering several country music CDs for my relatives during the holidays.

      There are two easy ways to fix this problem. If you hit the "Your Account" tab, scroll down to "Improve Your Recommendations", and there's the option to exclude purchases. You can fine-tine your entire list quickly there.

      The other way is to note that every time you're given a recommendation

  • Quick (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by rpillala ( 583965 )
    Someone find a patent on wiki and sue. You know you want to.

  • Errors with Safari (Score:2, Informative)

    by Athyra ( 163158 )
    I've been getting errors on Amazon pages as a result of the wiki (Javascript -- Null Value) on Safari with the last two MacOS systems. Amazon hasn't even responded to any of my messages about it, but I've got to say, even if an error is just harmless and can be bypassed by hitting "return," I'm not inclined to browse a site very often if I keep getting error pop-ups any more than if I'm getting ad pop-ups.

    Anyone know if other OS/browser combos are causing problems?
    • I was wondering about that. Every Mac OS X Tiger system I have used to access Amazon via Safari has been giving me the same error. At first, I thought it was a PithHelmet rule.

    • Re:Errors with Safari (Score:2, Informative)

      by Heembo ( 916647 )
      Safari is just behind the curve in browser support, mixed with a recent surge in use. As a AJAX web developer, that sucks. Take Sarissa - the lightning fast XML Javascript parsing engine. Works "everywhere" except for Safari. Many sights I develop just "looks different" in Safari. The positive side is, my employer bought me my first mac (iMac mini) and it's more responsive than my $2000 uber-dell. As for development, I now "code Javascript" to Safari - and test everywhere else, since Safari is the lowest co

  • Tag CDs which are copy controlled (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tim Macinta ( 1052 ) <twm@alum.mit.edu> on Saturday November 26, 2005 @11:10AM (#14118898) Homepage
    If you've bought a CD through Amazon.com which is copy controlled, this is a good opportunity to tag it as such by leaving a note in the wiki. For example, I did this here [amazon.com] - nothing inflammatory, just a friendly note for others who are thinking about buying the CD. This is information that I personally would like to know before deciding to purchase a CD, and I expect some others here feel the same.
    • I'm sure you can add warnings all day to an title listed as the #55,186 best seller in music. I'm curious to see someone do that sort of thing with a popular title. My experience with Amazon's review features has been that I can rant about unpopular titles all day and those comments hang around, which reinforces the idea that they allow positive and negative reviews. Obviously biased comments, and ones that are negative about the topic of the book, seem to persist as well, also reinforcing that they're a
    • Maybe I am a blind old man, but where is this comment/wiki (actually, I can't see anything that resembles wiki on any amazon sites)?
      • It's right below the Editorial Reviews section, at least for me and at least for now. My original wiki entry was made on November 11th, then it seemed that the wikis disappeared from Amazon.com for a few weeks, and now they're back, so they appear to be turning the feature on and off for whatever reason (maybe testing).
  • Maybe I'm just being stupid, but can anyone give me a link to the damn site? I can't find one anywhere, not even on Amazon's main site, or in the startlingly pathetic "help" page /. links to.
  • "Wikified items seem to be limited to certain categories, DVDs being one un-wikied realm."

    Not really. It's scheduled for all categories, but the launch of this feature may temporarily conflict with the launch of others, thus it is dormant in some categories until various experiments settle.
  • I get very, very aggrivated at Amazon most of the time. I've found that unless you know EXACTLY what you are looking for when typing in your search text, the search is useless.

    There used to be a day when you could literally just browse online on Amazon, and find things pretty easily. Now, with all the combined seaches and stuff, a simple search for a CD brings up 1000's of different matches, most of which have NOTHING to do with your CD or don't even contain the text of your search.

    I usually Google for wh
  • Now Amazon will try to patent the Wiki concept. And we complain about Microsoft?!

  • A company who patents obvious web-application technology is now freely using wiki technology (and getting publicity for it on what is now basically a webvertisement site). I can only continue not buying anything from them, trying to keep my rage in check.

    Hah, no only kidding.

    :|

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