Who posts/controls the Amazon listings?

I actually think this is cool, but sometimes the amazon listings are not correct, and want to knowwho controls them and how they can be corrected?

As I understand it, that would be our web-server/site host, Rebecca. I believe that it is built into the web-viewer interface of the MYSQL database as a revenue source to permit them to off-set some of the costs of hosting this site.

It is probably something like a simple look-up query that uses the name of the series to try to find a match against the AMAZON web site - and yes, it is very much a hit-or-miss type of match.

I guess I never see the Amazon listings here. ^_^;;;

You are probably set up (through the use of cookies) to always be logged in whenever you connect to this site. But if you are not logged in or are just a casual visitor, then some amazon anime ads will appear between the series listing and reviews. The ads do not always appear and if they do appear, they can be wrong - but it is all dependent on what matches are made on search criteria against the AMAZON web site.

I actually think the addition is cool, i just was hoping for a way where i could get the correct dvds under there specific anime titles. I would hate for someone to read one of our reviews, go out and buy the DVD through amazon, and get the completely wrong anime...

Yeah, the Amazon listings are machine generated (mostly), it's basically as Jan-Chan says. It uses the Amazon web-services API to query the Amazon catalog based on the titles given for a show. It's usually pretty good, but it doesn't always work out correctly.

I can block ads from displaying on a title by title basis, which I've done for 172 series that were consistently showing the wrong results (often due to the combination of a generic title and no US release).

I can also manually enter a list of Amazon ASINs in the database, I've done this for 46 titles. (Which is, for instance, how Cutie Honey (Live-Action Movie) gets to have a link to the Japanese Amazon.)

Someday I would like to open up editing of those fields. Right now my interface is write-only... that is, I can set it but there's no interface for changing things once it's set. (I have to go update the database directly in order to make changes.)

And yeah, you might not see them much as folks who are logged in never see any ads. The Amazon ads, unlike the Google ads, might actually be useful to a reviewer, so there should probably be a way to display them. Maybe a button to expand that section.

For the record, last time I checked, the Google ads bring in $40-$60 a month and the Amazon ones about $70 a quarter. Colo is $100 a month (but that's going away eventually and I'll have to find something else, probably in the $150-$200 a month range, unless I go with Dedimove but they feel a little sketchy to me.

Looking more at series with blocked entires I see that often I just did it for shows that I knew weren't available (at the time) here in the US, thus saving my site from making pointless queries to Amazon. However I note that some of them have since been licensed and released, so that list will need some editing.

We (the different reviewers) have set up an R1 flag (in the notables section) to signal which US company has licensed a series. How hard would it be tag these dozen (or so) fields to trip the Amazon listing search?

Would it be easier to just create a single R1 flag in the KEYWORDS section, which could be linked to the Amazon listing search?

Just let us know what would work best. We don't mind helping you better manage the site and also maximize any potential revenue needed to support this site.

Hey what happened to the adds? I like them, i was just hoping for a more accurate link, or for a way for us to be able to control them...or have input if something is wrong...

They're there... er, I'll have to double check what criteria it uses to determin when to display them. I like the idea of triggering off of an R1 flag a lot. That's a good idea.