[REQ] - Amazon Recommendations Quick Picks Maneuvering

[benson_automate]

Hi. Something I've been doing since partaking in Gold Box Quick Pick Deals on Amazon.com is to try and maneuvor items, Blu Ray releases in particular, that I want to purchase into my "Recommendations" section, which ultimiately have a high chance of showing up on my daily "Quick Picks" on the Gold Box page. For those who may be unaware, "Quick Picks" are discounted by 5% from the regular Amazon.com price, if I'm not mistaken.

I was wondering if it were possible or even practical to have a Sticky thread in the Blu Ray section that helped identify what items can get certain Blu Ray releases into someone's "Recommendations" page so that there is a higher chance of that item being a future "Quick Pick" deal.

For example... by "Rating" and/or "Owning" one Blu Ray, DVD, or HD DVD release, results in another Blu Ray release ending up in someone's "Recommendations". It's possible that it might not work for every instance given that everybody has different Ratings, Owned, and Not Interested Items, but I think based on my own practice of this strategy that it would actually work for post people.

Granted there are several hundred releases and more are coming every week, so maybe we can limit it to posted requests and releases up for pre-order and go from there with a similar effect of the "Amazon Price Adjustment" thread.

Hopefully such a thread can help some people save 5% here and there... Anyone up for the task?

[RandellG]

I don't think we need a sticky. It's real easy to figure out how it works. For example:

90% of the time if you order a movie, you will get a recommendation with a movie that includes one of the actors, directors, or in the same genera.

That's not how it always plays out but that's the how it works most of the time. Sometimes the recommendations is weird though. For example: I ordered 'Tikerbell' and got a recommendation for 'Girls Gone Wild: Sex Race'

[ben1080p]

It was kinda my luck.
I never saw GTAIV(PS3) or DS3 in my quick pix.
But all I did was put it in my want list.
then take it out.
And they got the idea to try and buy into a deal.

[JU1CYFRU1T]

I guess I'm missing something...

Where does this '5% off' thing happen? I haven't heard about it... am I missing something that could save me tons of money?

[RandellG]

Originally Posted by JU1CYFRU1T

I guess I'm missing something...

Where does this '5% off' thing happen? I haven't heard about it... am I missing something that could save me tons of money?

Go to "todays deals" and scroll down. You will see"

Your Name's Quick Picks - To take advantage of the extra discount on one of these products chosen especially for you, add one item from this section to your cart and buy within an hour. New items added every day. Learn more

All items are marked doen just for you.

[JU1CYFRU1T]

I feel like a complete moron.... I have been using Amazon forever (I'm even a Prime member) and I never knew this was here.

THANKS... I'm going to 'rearrange my wish-list' and see if I can get an even better deal on some stuff that I'm going to buy anyway.

[project-blu]

Originally Posted by RandellG

Sometimes the recommendations is weird though. For example: I ordered 'Tikerbell' and got a recommendation for 'Girls Gone Wild: Sex Race'

One: You ordered Tinkerbell (I'm only teasing, my man. You have diverse tastes)
Two: I see the correlation Mr. Randell. One has a scantily clad pixie who's got caches of "pixie dust", the other has scantily clad, high on "pixie dust" *ahem cocaine ahem* nymphos.

I think this thread would be great in the deals section, as I, along w/ Ju1cy, have never gotten quick picks to work. I've noticed, that when a thread is seriously popular and/or successful, like the "what did you watch" thread, or ruvic's amazon price adj threads, they get stickied then. why sticky something that may fail miserably?

[RandellG]

Originally Posted by JU1CYFRU1T

I feel like a complete moron.... I have been using Amazon forever (I'm even a Prime member) and I never knew this was here.

THANKS... I'm going to 'rearrange my wish-list' and see if I can get an even better deal on some stuff that I'm going to buy anyway.

FYI the wish-list won't make it appear in your QP's, I tried. If it does than shame on me for lieing to you.

For a heads up, keep track of your recommendations. It will give you a better chance on getting what you want.

As for as feeling like a moron, welcome to the club .

[JU1CYFRU1T]

I'm going to go through and edit my 'recently viewed' list too...

I use amazon for album cover art, because iTunes 'Get album art' feature is a COMPLETE joke. I was trying to get the cover art for PotC Dead Man's Chest... and it kept saying 'No cover art was found'.

My first thought... "You have GOT to be kidding me! iTunes doesn't have a Disney soundtrack" so I searched... YUP... it's there... but iTunes 'couldn't find it'... so I went to amazon, found the album, saved the pic and put it in manually.

iTunes didn't have ANY of the Tool albums either (cover art).

Anyway... I'm removing a bunch of stuff from my 'viewed' list.

BTW, when does the list 'refresh'? My list for today is the same as it was last night... I ended up 'selecting' Blue Planet, just so the other coupons would expire (because there was nothing there I was interested in)...

*edit* I'm going to assume that items I have 'saved to my cart' are not going to show up on my recommendation list?... I don't know for sure... but whatever, I will just keep an eye on what is working, and what is not.

[RandellG]

It will refresh at different times. I don't think theres any one certian time it does it.

[JU1CYFRU1T]

Well then... thank God for Mac widgets! For those 'not-in-the-know' with a mac (I don't know abotu PC... I just learned I could do this yesterday)... I can use Safari to make a widget for my desktop that is a 'real time' view of a portion on a webpage.

Basically, it's like a RSS feed, except it's an actual protion of a screenshot image. SWEET!

Next 'new to this' question... does the coupon use/exp count for the day, or for the deal? Since I added 'Blue Planet' to my cart... does that mean that I can't use it again this afternoon if/when they refresh my list? Don't know if anyone knows... but I figured since I'm asking tons of questions... what's a few more.

[RandellG]

You just can't (or not suppose to, but still can) use anymore from the list that you choose from.

[RandellG]

Oh BTW J I just tested this myself (cause I had to redo my whole iTunes libary after my HDD died) if you go on AMZ find the coverart and copy it, you can go into iTunes and to the "get info" and then to the artwork section, you can paste the picture there. Just a simple Copy & paste. No need to download the artwork to your computer/mac.

[bence2g]

Originally Posted by JU1CYFRU1T

I'm going to go through and edit my 'recently viewed' list too...

I use amazon for album cover art, because iTunes 'Get album art' feature is a COMPLETE joke. I was trying to get the cover art for PotC Dead Man's Chest... and it kept saying 'No cover art was found'.

My first thought... "You have GOT to be kidding me! iTunes doesn't have a Disney soundtrack" so I searched... YUP... it's there... but iTunes 'couldn't find it'... so I went to amazon, found the album, saved the pic and put it in manually.

iTunes didn't have ANY of the Tool albums either (cover art).

I dunno if you already figured all this out but, if it's on iTunes then you can get the cover art, even if you downloaded it from another place. But you have to match their song title, album, artist, and maybe some other fields EXACTLY. One missed comma and it'll act like the cover art doesn't exist, probably what happened on your POTC.

If it's not on iTunes, like all of Tool's albums, then yeah you have to manually put it in.

[JU1CYFRU1T]

Originally Posted by bence2g

I dunno if you already figured all this out but, if it's on iTunes then you can get the cover art, even if you downloaded it from another place. But you have to match their song title, album, artist, and maybe some other fields EXACTLY. One missed comma and it'll act like the cover art doesn't exist, probably what happened on your POTC.

If it's not on iTunes, like all of Tool's albums, then yeah you have to manually put it in.

That was the weird thing with POTC... all the info was loaded from the disc. I figured that the Tool thing was obvious... but there should be an easier way to 'help' iTunes use the right art.

I would imagine something as easy as... find correct album art in iTunes Store... right click... send to album artwork... (then select disc to attach art to). How hard would that be?!

Then it saves me the trouble of having to open Firefox (granted I have an internet connection... no uploading music to my HDD while I'm at work ), finding the art (AGAIN) and then copy/pasting it to iTunes. It's just not 'easy'... I guess.

The one thing that I like, is with 'Cover Flow', I don't have to add the artwork to every song (like I did with iTunes 6, I think it was... back when the 5G first came out). THAT was frustrating.