Update: I've added a new feature - Simple Search from Amazon Light. it's not so much a feature of this site, as it is a separate service though - it allows anyone to copy and paste a bit of HTML into their own page or website, and get a search box - but most importantly, the results are drawn out on the same page - it does not take you to the "results" page on Amazon.com (or Amazon Light). It's a pretty interesting project, and one I don't recall seeing done before. Please have a look if you're interested - oh, and did I mention it's free.

Update: Added source code for all recent features and all pages, for a more complete behind-the-scenes look at Amazon Light. Files listed below.

Update: Yes, I had promised to ease up on the updates, but these two were 'in the works', if you buy that rationalization. The first update is the "Amazon Sells This?" box on the front page - it's a randomly selected item (reload page to see more) from a list of items that one generally wouldn't think Amazon.com sold - like a Riding Lawn Mower, a Harley-Davidson Ken Doll, or a Ladies Restroom Sign. Why? Well, why not - it's meant to be fun (or at the very least, interesting).

The second update is additional search buttons for actors and directors. Search for an item in DVDs or Video, and where there are directors or actors displayed, you'll see a series of small buttons after their name (try it out with Forrest Gump). The buttons are: "I"=Internet Movie DataBase listing, "G"=Google Search, "TV"=Search upcoming television appearances for this performer (US, Pacific Time, 14 days forward), and "S"=Shatner Number - how many degrees of separation is this performer from William Shatner. Why Shatner? Again, why not - the man has been in over 200 shows of widely varying caliber (film & TV) over a 50 year span - and is still going. Therefore, it's tough to find anyone with a Shatner number higher than 3.

Big Update: Added a number of things - firstly the new Your List feature - as seen in the top right corner of this page (read all about Your List over here). Your List allows you to collect items into a list on Amazon Light, and when you're done, either add them all to Amazon.com's shopping cart - or your Amazon.com Wishlist, or other Amazon.com registries, or generate HTML links for copying & pasting and more. Also added small sitewide navigation to the top left of most pages, cleaned up many small bits and bugs from the previous iteration, and added some further back-end efficiency to make queries go even faster. As always, if you encounter any bugs or unexpected behavior (or have a comment), please send it in. I understand that these additions may seem like more clutter, but hopefully they are useful enough to be tolerable. If there is enough demand, I may add an option for individuals to remove the Your List feature, and return to the somewhat slimmer look of the previous version. Please don't view these additions as a bad trend, just view it as a 1.0 release (as opposed to the previous 0.9 beta version). I have just declared a self-imposed moratorium on new features for the forseeable future. (The only exceptions being other useful options for the Your List management page).

Update: Just added "Browse by category" capability. The same interface set up to display top items by their Amazon Categories, rather than by search terms. You can still search, and switch back and forth between modes (search and browse) at will. Please report any problems that crop up here.

Update: Just added "Author Search" links to books detail pages. Click on the Authors' name in the detail page and you'll get results of a search of all works by the author(s) listed.

Update: No, this website is not affiliated with the domains "amazonlite.com" nor "amazonlight.com". These domains were registered by another party. The webservice "Amazon Light" by Kokogiak Media will continue to remain at this URL, http://www.kokogiak.com/amazon .

This layout is, well, very plain
That's intentional, as Amazon Light was laid out to be simple and efficient - since, frankly speaking, shopping at Amazon.com can often be anything but simple or efficient. Amazon Light uses Amazon.com's Search capabilities and returns the information in a rather plain-vanilla manner. Hopefully the end result is a faster, cleaner Amazon.com search experience - moreso than can be found at the original site. I promise to restrain myself from adding too much more to the site over time, but do have a couple small additions up my sleeve.

How is this done?
Through Amazon.com's Webservices API. Amazon.com has opened up their catalog via XML over HTTP and the SOAP protocol. Amazon Light is done through ASP and VBScript, using XMLHTTP and ResponseXML objects to retrieve Amazon.com's XML over HTTP on IIS5.0. That's a mouthful, and ugly to read as well, so here's what happens -> the IIS server has an object that allows one to fetch a document to the server over the web, like a browser fetching an HTML document to your desktop. In this case, we're fetching a special XML document provided by Amazon.com, and treating it much like a small database, grabbing the important information and putting it all together on the server to serve up as HTML to the end user. If that's still not helpful, here's the code for the home page, results page, and the details page - basically the bulk of Amazon.com served through three files.

New: All pages now listed - ASP Source Code for
• default.asp - Home Page
• results.asp - Search Results Page
• detpage.asp - Details Page
• advsearch.asp - Advanced Search Page
• yourlist.asp - Your List Page
• format.asp - Format page (writes out HTML/text based on contents of cart)
• ylist.inc - Your List Include (mini-shopping-cart)

Can I reuse this code?
Yes, by all means, go and reuse this as you wish - just be sure to credit the source, Kokogiak Media (http://www.kokogiak.com). You will need to obtain your own developer's token from Amazon.com though, if you want credit for your own traffic.

What's with this book about Whittier Alaska?
Well, that's my book, The Strangest town in Alaska. I wrote & published it, so what better book to use as a default (if no search term is entered)?

Update: Enough people have asked me, that I felt I should post the contents of the letter from Google. Especially in support of efforts such as the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse. For what it's worth, I don't think the Google folks are the bad guys in this. Sure I was disappointed, and surprised, since Google has such a great reputation within Internet circles. But I do think it was naive for me to create a copy, call it a "blatant copy", and to expect nothing to happen. Thanks for all the support and feedback, it's been great. Here's the email.

One additional note, in the interest of being completely up-front, the product images on this site are served up directly from Amazon.com's Image Servers. The XML files used to construct these pages are also served up by Amazon, but they are retrieved by Amazon Light on the server side, so Amazon.com can gather no information about the end user in this manner.

Plus there's the satisfaction of building something one finds personally rewarding - and discovering others find value in it as well. Please feel free to email any questions, concerns or comments you have to info@kokogiak.com.