Using REST with Amazon

Pretty cool article at ONLamp.com about using REST instead of SOAP with Amazon’s web services. Hmmm.

The work done by both Amazon and Google at creating APIs for their services and the uses people are putting them to is one of the most exciting things to happen on the Internet in the last few years (together with news aggregators). Back in 1995, who would have thought that opening up a bookseller’s database would be a big deal?

It seems that the big success stories of the web, like Amazon, Google, EBay, and Hotmail, all have one thing in common: The heavy lifting is performed by the customer. They provide systems that encourage people to interact with data and then use their systems to add value to the data that their customers have given them. This is so brilliant; one of the big problems a lot of big-name sites, like Slate, have had is that compelling content is just so darn expensive. So take something as mundane as a bookstore database, then make it smart through its interactions with people, and voila! money. People like to interact with people! What a concept! But people like to interact with people without having to deal with people even better.