secondly? as a developer driven site - there will be more automated updating (no more logging in to do it) - developers can create an .xml feed on their own sites to deliver content. this content could also be pushed out to sites such as versiontracker.com.
Good idea! Another developer-friendly feature I would like to see in such a site is a short URL for the listing for each program, in the form of:
http://www.good-esd.com/id.cgi?45680
or
http://www.good-esd.com/45680.html
or
http://www.good-esd.com/45680.cgi
for a product with an id of 45680. I'm sick and tired of URLs like this:
http://www.evil-esd.com/VeryLongNameForAScript.cgi?trash=BLAH12312312&moreTrash=ASDYAUIFAA456&heresMoreTrashInCaseYouHadntHadEnough=ERJALKFAFD&id=45680
The Big Players force you to refer your customers to their page instead of your own company's home page, yet they don't make it easy for you to refer to customers directly to the page listing your product. There's no way one of those big and ugly URLs will fit in a handheld's screen, or that customers will type that into their browser even if such a URL actually fits in there. It looks like the customer will have to do a search on the ESD's page to try and find your product's page and actually purchase it. (You have to cross your fingers and hope they don't accidentally go to a competitor's product and buy that instead or get tired of looking for your product and postpone or abandon the purchase.) Really, Big Players, what is so hard about having a short URL? You could at least have a URL such as
http://search.good-esd.com
that lets you type in the product ID and get directly to the correct product listing. May a new developer-friendly ESD implement such a feature, or may you, the Big Players, do this as well if you decide to become more friendly to your developer "partners" before they get tired of you.
Andres Cabezas
P.S. Yes, the big and ugly URLs may actually transmit some useful referral information, I admit. Yes, there may still be a need for big and ugly URLs to implement your business model. But there just HAS to be at least one way of getting the exact product listing you want with a short, handheld-friendly, URL.
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