If you’re wondering what’s up with Ruby-Amazon, it is actually based on Amazon Web Service’s 3.1 version. I was playing with it earlier this week and realized there was a ton of missing data. So I’ve migrated some of my apps to Amazon-ECS as a result. I have to say I’m pretty impressed with the library as it allows you to flexibly integrate with new versions of Amazon’s platform. There was some effort in integrating a different library but if you’re familiar with Hpricot it should be a snap. I’m not sure why Herryanto built it with Hpricot, as I’m a REXML fan myself.

I totally dig Amazon’s platform though. It really allows affiliates to add value to Amazon’s site.

I’m at the Ebay Developer conference and they just unveiled a new community for developers to showcase their projects.

What’s really cool is their development radar. It’s a community driven approach to evangelizing development. Basically, if you’re not technical and you’d like a widget that does something wild with your watch list or current auctions, you can post your idea at the radar and a developer can build it out. It has some Digg like functionality where users can add their own “demand” for already posted functionality.

What a great way to connect developers to the community that uses their tools. Its a mutually beneficial solution - users get their functionality and developers get their audience. Pretty smart.

There’s a huge push here to start driving buyers to the popular auction site - interesting stuff. The web really does give power to small teams - can you create the killer app that makes a mark on Ebay’s income statement?  If you can, they’re giving away a PS3.