I'm trying to use the eBay Developer APIs to add eBay prices to wishradar. The entire experience has been nothing but frustrating. This is the worst designed system I have ever seen. I can't believe that anyone is willing to fight through the stupidity long enough to actually build an application with their API.
The whole thing is disjointed. I've had to sign up for at least 4 different thing kinds of credentials and accounts in order to make a simple REST call. And that's totally separate from the Affiliate program, which I also need if we expect to make any money from this exercise. The documentation is poorly written and confusingly organized. The API itself is badly over-complicated. The site is confusing, ugly and uninformative.
And now, crucially, when I finally have my request working, I have to get "certified," before I use it at any volume. For this, a human must manually review each API request I want to make. This certification process is supposed to take a week to ten days. Or, at least it might if I can could actually access the system where I am supposed to make the certification request. Unfortunately, that's where I hit a wall. Their support will not let me log in with any of the four types of credentials I've had to get thus far, and there is no way to create a new account. So I'm locked out.
The Amazon API system is a joy to use, by comparison. It's simple, clear, reasonably well documented and easy to get started. The affiliate program is nicely integrated with the API. (eBay is still using Commission Junction!)
The eBay Developer staff are either malicious, incompetent, and asleep at the wheel. The whole process has been awful, and I am seriously considering punting it all and saying we'll never have eBay data. Or perhaps I should give up on the API and just screen-scrape the data that we need. It would be far easier. And that should tell you something.
Google Analytics announced a redesign today that makes a huge improvement in their previously sucky UI. I had all but forgotten that Jeff Veen and MeasureMap were acquired by google a while back. But it certainly looks like it paid off.
I just installed the new Adobe Creative Suite 3, and I have to say, it really flies. This is the first Adobe release in ages where the apps actually got faster. And not just faster on my Intel MacBook, which would be expected from finally going Universal (more than a year later), but it's noticeably faster on my G5, too. For that alone, it's worth upgrading.
And also, while I originally hated the new icon set when I first saw it debuted as a big graphic several months ago, I am forced to admit than in context, they really work. The whole revised identity kit is terrific. And I appreciate that they have eliminated the needless overlap between Adobe and Flash apps, taking the best of both worlds and ensuring that they work in more-or-less the same fashion. Good work, all around.
I wanted to drop a quick, work-related note about Codegeist II, the second annual Atlassian plugin competition. We've put up $20k in cash prizes and the contest is now accepting entries.
The same rules as last year apply — teams of one to three people, enter as often as you like, all submissions must be BSD-licensed. All entries will become part of the open-source plugin libraries, free for anyone to use. The contest concludes May 13th.
You'll find all the details on the Codegeist space on confluence.atlassian.com. And stay tuned to the Atlassian Developer Blog for updates.
If you're a developer, or you know any developers, this is a great opportunity to win some great prizes. We had some great entries last year, and it was fun handing out the prizes to some smart and deserving teams. I'm looking forward to seeing what we get this year.
It happened again this morning. [Cue ominous music.]
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.04/wired40_ceo.html
Excellent article, with many new examples of the benefits of openness.
When I plug my laptop in each morning, the first thing it does it download my email and my unread feed items. The last two days when I've come in to work, my feed reader has looked like this:
As I mentioned, several of my co-workers and I attended the latest Under the Radar Conference, on Office 2.0. It was an interesting day — much more successful, in my opinion, that the eponymous Office 2.0 conference that I attended in the fall. Office 2.0 was comprised almost exclusively of panel discussions, which as we've seen from recent SxSW feedback is a difficult format to make useful.
UTR, on the other hand, was structured in this way: each session contained 14-minute presentations by four companies in a very similar market. Each presentation was a 6 minute demo followed by eight minutes of questions from a three-judge panel. At the end of the four presentations the moderator and the judges discussed the product-space in general, using the demos as context. This resulted in a much more concrete and concentrated discussion than any of the hour-long panels that I heard at Office 2.0. The judges responded directly (and aggressively) to the demos, they made generally incisive comments, and then wrapped up with useful thoughts on the market in-general.
There were two tracks going, so I was only able to see half of the demos. But I'll give you my thoughts on what I did see.
I think Open Source is the right thing to do the same way I believe science is better than alchemy.
Jonathan Nolen 