FIXED: Add an Amazon anime title match field

Following up on an earlier discussion thread - http://anime.mikomi.org/forum/showpost.html?num=278#2874 - could it be possible to add a 'hidden' or masked field, that appears only when series (edit) window is opened? This field is intended to be used solely for optimizing title name matches to the amazon site.

We could then add an appropriate R1 anime name to this field when we tag a series as being R1 Licensed.

Our main focus or concern is that we really don't think that Japanese Oil Wrestling should be displayed as a default value from the amazon-site when there is no title name match.

If you could create this (amazon match) field, then we could manage it. We might have to agree upon some default value for amazon searches should this field be empty, but that is a minor issue.

Edited on 09/10/2008 10:25 AM.

Currently, it searches Amazon for each title in turn till it finds a match. If nothing matches then nothing should be shown. The reason that Japanese Oil Wrestling was showing up was that the kanji title had a suffix of "(Japanese)". Removing that stops Japanese Oil Wrestling from matching.

I have the ability to make a series show a specific list of Amazon titles or ban it from showing any at all. I can also ban specific Amazon titles from showing up in the search results. I've added the ASIN for Japanese Oil Wrestling (B000OVLA0E) to that list.

Still, selecting the first title that matches something at Amazon is less then ideal...

Edited on 09/10/2008 10:40 PM.

Right now I'm inclined to just turn it off by default and only have it explicitly enabled for titles that I've either selected the Amazon products myself, or that I can vouch for the search results. (I'd be fine with giving you all the ability to set this too, but I wouldn't want anyone to feel obligated.)

[Edit: Oh, and I've turned on display of it for reviewers, since ideally it should make the site better. If it's detracting from the site, screw the (paltry) revenue, I want it gone.]

Edited on 09/10/2008 10:46 PM.

Rebecca, I don't know if you can do it easily, but for reviews can you put the ads at the bottom?

And if you can, what do the others think about that idea?

I'm fine with whatever Rebecca is doing here albeit having a switch in the user configuration for turning the Amazon ads on and of looks like the most luxurious solution for people who are logged in (and I personally might turn them off then).

Moving them around is of course pretty easy. Slightly more complicated would be to add a config option, but that's sounding best, with options of: top, bottom, hide

So I've also made it not try to search on any title that has kanji and/or kana in the name, since that only ever resulted in sadness.

Update: So instead I've made it include the Buy From Amazon section all the time, but with a link to hide/show it. For reviewers it doesn't show it unless you click that link.

Edited on 09/11/2008 10:21 PM.

Is that efficient in terms of traffic? Would storing that information in the login cookie be better?

I'm not going to worry about optimizing away a few hundred bytes for the vast minority of visitors. That would, in my opinion, be silly. And more importantly, it's way easier for me do this then to add a preference. Of all the things I could do with the site, do you really honestly believe that optimizing the By-From-Amazon section for reviews is the best thing I could be doing?

Edited on 09/13/2008 08:37 AM.

Well 1. If frees you up from that 2. It's a revenue generator. So if it isn't that hard, it's a good idea.