In a few short years, Amazon has evolved from an online bookstore into a complex marketplace comprised of thousands of vendors, millions of customers, and an ever-widening selection of products.

With the launch of Amazon Web Services, buyers and sellers have unprecedented access to the immense body of data underpinning this marketplace. Mining Amazon Web Services: Building Applications with the Amazon API shows you what you can do with these powerful tools, and exactly how to do it. As a buyer, you'll build applications that let you comparison-shop far more effectively, consistently saving money and finding exactly the right product. As a seller, you'll leverage Amazon Web Services in ways that help you attract more customers, make more commissioned referrals, and improve your bottom line. This book is also a great resource for independent developers who want to create and publish—even make money with—applications for others. Here's some of what you'll find covered inside:

• Performing complex product searches
• Analyzing the data obtained in your searches
• Connecting Amazon Web Services to a local database
• Building a Web Services-based shopping cart
• Using Amazon-supported search technologies, including XML over HTTP and SOAP
• Improving speed and reliability
• Building applications for mobile devices
• Building and publishing applications for others

All that's required is some basic experience with any one of several programming languages, including VBA, Visual Basic 6, Visual C++ 6, Visual Basic .NET, Visual C# .NET, Java, and PHP, all of which are fully represented in the book's downloadable code.