product of the day... - General Tiki

H hanford_lemoore Tiki Socialite Tiki Central Joined: Mar 23, 2002 Posts: 1899	H hanford_lemoore Posted posted on Wed, May 17, 2006 1:56 PM what gives?? are those the only tiki products in the world?? there is so much tiki stuff available, that we should be able to get through a year without seeing the same products twice......what is the critera for choosing products of the day?? why aren't some artists products featured? Good question Tipsy, I've recently been thinking about modifying it. The current list is a bit stale. Here's the scoop on why: The answer to most of these questions is that it's a labor issue. To add an item to the list of products, I need to (A) choose a product, (b) get it's name or description, (c) get a link to a page where it's for sale, and (d) get photo scaled down to the correct size so it fits on the page. It's not a huge amount of work, but times it by hundreds of products and it adds up, even when people suggest to me a product themselves. I just don't have the time to do it. The products that are in there now are all powered through Amazon.com. A while back I wrote a tool (for a different project) that I modified for Product Of The Day. With the tool running, I visit an amazon page and simply hit a button. The tool automatically grabs the name of the product, it's Amazon.com link, and it's graphic, which it then shrinks down. I can optionally write a quick description for it, and then with another button press it adds it to the Product Of The Day list. So the process of adding an Amazon.com products is just a few seconds per item, excluding search time. So, the reason the list is as short as it is, is that that's about all the tikiesque products I've found on Amazon.com. I haven't done a tiki search on Amazon for a while though. Full disclosure: I do also get a referral fee when someone buys a product through amazon this way, so that was also an incentive for me. I currently do not take product suggestions for product of the day because of the labor issue. But the next step would be to allow members to submit their own product suggestions by uploading a photo, supplying a link (whether it's to amazon.com or anywhere else on the web), and writing a description. Then All I would need to do is approve it. This would spread the labor out across every TCer who wanted to help out. This is on my todo list, but it requires me to do some significant programming. I hope that clears things up, and I hope people forgive me for such a small list of products!

what gives?? are those the only tiki products in the world?? there is so much tiki stuff available, that we should be able to get through a year without seeing the same products twice......what is the critera for choosing products of the day?? why aren't some artists products featured?

Good question Tipsy, I've recently been thinking about modifying it. The current list is a bit stale. Here's the scoop on why:

The answer to most of these questions is that it's a labor issue. To add an item to the list of products, I need to (A) choose a product, (b) get it's name or description, (c) get a link to a page where it's for sale, and (d) get photo scaled down to the correct size so it fits on the page. It's not a huge amount of work, but times it by hundreds of products and it adds up, even when people suggest to me a product themselves. I just don't have the time to do it.

The products that are in there now are all powered through Amazon.com. A while back I wrote a tool (for a different project) that I modified for Product Of The Day. With the tool running, I visit an amazon page and simply hit a button. The tool automatically grabs the name of the product, it's Amazon.com link, and it's graphic, which it then shrinks down. I can optionally write a quick description for it, and then with another button press it adds it to the Product Of The Day list. So the process of adding an Amazon.com products is just a few seconds per item, excluding search time.

So, the reason the list is as short as it is, is that that's about all the tikiesque products I've found on Amazon.com. I haven't done a tiki search on Amazon for a while though. Full disclosure: I do also get a referral fee when someone buys a product through amazon this way, so that was also an incentive for me.

I currently do not take product suggestions for product of the day because of the labor issue. But the next step would be to allow members to submit their own product suggestions by uploading a photo, supplying a link (whether it's to amazon.com or anywhere else on the web), and writing a description. Then All I would need to do is approve it. This would spread the labor out across every TCer who wanted to help out. This is on my todo list, but it requires me to do some significant programming.

I hope that clears things up, and I hope people forgive me for such a small list of products!

Post #232557 by hanford_lemoore on Wed, May 17, 2006 1:56 PM