If one wanted to build a web site around books, would it be better to use Amazon's web services API or the Google book API? All aspects of the question are welcome discussion fodder: technical ease, quality of metadata, API capabilities, language support, and so on.
+3
A:
Have you considered using both? Using the unique ISBN numbers of books, it must be possible to lookup the information via both API's..
Ferry van Genderen
2008-11-06 07:44:27
Use EAN's (aka ISBN13)
jim
2009-05-08 01:39:19
+1
A:
I'm using both the Amazon and Google API on my personal book sharing site http://www.wajapi.com
I would lean towards using Amazon's web services (AWS) as your primary API and then use the ISBN from the AWS results to hook into anything Google provides but Amazon doesn't.
The main reasons are:
- Lots of other people are using AWS so finding support is easier
- Availability of code libraries to make life easier
- Example: Ruby Amazon lib (what I use): www.github.com/jugend/amazon-ecs
- Include your Amazon AWS key and you can earn referral fees
Geir Freysson
2010-01-25 19:12:09
Why thank you. I can't take credit for the look though, as I outsourced the design (as most developers should). More about the design here: http://www.wajapi.com/about
Geir Freysson
2010-01-30 17:33:14