From what I can tell, the wish list went online about 6 months after my suggestion... does anyone know precisely when? I see it advertised on this archival page from October ’99. Of course, the idea could have been in process already when my suggestion arrived; it is fairly obvious...
To: suggestions@amazon.com
From: Christopher League
Subject: suggested feature: wish list
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 13:00:21 -0500
Message-Id: <19990226130021F.league@cs.yale.edu>
Dear amazon.com,
I have been a regular customer for several years. I have an idea for your site that would make my interactions with amazon.com even easier, and perhaps other customers would appreciate this feature too.
The feature I want is a “wish list”... a list of books, CDs, or gifts that I have browsed on amazon.com and would be interested in owning, but am not yet ready to purchase. When I browse any item on amazon.com, I have an option to add it to “my wish list.” When I go to my wish list page, I can delete items or move items into my shopping cart. The wish list is essentially a persistent shopping cart, or a set of bookmarks on amazon.com.
So, why keep them server-side, rather than just store them in a dedicated folder in my browser’s bookmark database? Well, I envision that my amazon.com wish list could be “public,” as well. When my grandmother asks what I want for my birthday, I could tell her, “Why not visit my wish list at amazon.com?” Now, the wish list becomes a gift registry. My relatives and friends can visit it to buy me gifts from amazon and ensure that, a) it’s something I want, b) it’s something I don’t already have, and c) no two gift-givers (including myself!) select the same gift. Added convenience—since my shipping address is already stored in your database, my friends don’t have to enter that.
This feature seems quite useful and desirable, and probably does not require any more sophisticated programming than you already have in place.
One issue that is unclear is the privacy of my wish list. How do would-be gift-givers find my list? Can anyone access my list, just by giving my name? Or do I have to tell them about it explicitly and give them an access code? Perhaps privacy issues are customizable on a per-item and per-user basis. Maybe I don’t want my mother to see all the trashy novels I want to read, but I’d like my best friends to see them...
Just some thoughts...
`Chris
Christopher League Yale University Computer Science league@contrapunctus.net http://contrapunctus.net/league/