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January 30, 2007

Amazon's product wiki

RageBoy stumbled on Amazon's Amapedia, a wiki for the products you like. It uses what Amazon is calling "collaborative structured tagging." Click on, say, "cameras" in the tag cloud and you can walk through a camera hierarchy until you get to a particular model. There you can do a product write-up or record your opinion, personal experiences, etc.

Pretty damn cool. [Tags: everything_is_miscellaneous wiki marketing amazon ]

Posted by D. Weinberger at January 30, 2007 10:30 AM


Comments

But only editable by US Amazon customers.

"Our records indicate that you have never purchased anything from Amazon in the United States. We require such a purchase to edit articles on Amapedia in order to prevent fraud. Please use the form below to notify the Amapedia administrators if you think this is in error."

I told them this sucks. I'm waiting to hear back.

Posted by: Lloyd Davis | January 31, 2007 05:34 AM


Why should anyone be able to edit the wiki? Unless there is some way if verifying the poster actually has the product, this could become a forum for product shills or for hatchet jobs against certain companies.

By only allowing purchasers of the item reviewed, this is controlled. However, the screening is inadequate. I just reviewed a book (I'm a veteran Amazon customer.) which I did NOT purchase from them. My being a customer doesn't preclude my having an ax to grind.

I gotta go review some Microsoft products . . .

Posted by: Charlie Green | January 31, 2007 11:20 AM


Charlie - sorry it wasn't clear, but as a Brit, the axe (sic) I have to grind is not with having to be a customer but with having to be an *American* customer.

And btw I haven't heard back yet.

Posted by: Lloyd Davis | January 31, 2007 06:37 PM


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