Watchcow is an xml feed that lets you convert your amazon wishlist into an xml file. This is good, because my amazon wishlist is to my knowledge the largest wishlist of any amazon customer.
Now the challenge is figuring out how to display the wishlist conveniently in a browser (the xml file is a whopping 1.5 mb file–you can download Robert Nagle’s amazon wishlist as an xml file here btw). But this is a nice project for my xml/xslt editor, oxygen xml editor.
Given that pervasive wireless access in Houston is still a pipe dream, having an offline copy of a wishlist is handy when browsing through bookstores or libraries (what was that title called? How much was amazon charging?). I already have a copy of my book collection list on my PDA and a list of Gutenburg titles on my ebookwise 1150 reader.
One thing encouraging about Amazon’s business practices is that it’s generally given free access to its APIs for third parties, so such applications become possible.
Unrelated Note: Just a few days ago someone pointed out to me that API’s is wrong; APIs is the correct way to write the plural of the API acronym. Plurals of acronyms do not use apostrophes, contrary to what I may have thought. How embarrassing. It ranks when the faux pas I committed at JHU writing workshop when I misspelled a word. The word was “drawer.” For some reason, the 22 year old version of myself thought it was spelled “droor.” The class (led by famed novelist John Barth) was critiquing a story of mine, where I must have used the word about 20 times. Never before was my ignorance so frightfully apparent.