# Rails + Amazon

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-amazon/113466>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [August 31, 2007, 11:39am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-amazon/113466 "2007-08-31T11:39:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![RSElliott\_M](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/b487fb/32.png) [@RSElliott\_M](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/RSElliott_M)\
**Post date:** [August 31, 2007, 11:39am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-amazon/113466/1 "2007-08-31T11:39:20Z")

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I’m trying to develop a Facebook application in Rails that allows users  
to look up certain products on Amazon. I know Amazon has Amazon Web  
Services, and I thought this would give me a clue as to how to proceed,  
but it so far appears those services are highly specific. ? I’m totally  
lost here. How should I go about allowing users to use my application  
to search and retrieve records from [Amazon.com](http://Amazon.com)? I saw other Facebook  
applications use Amazon for searching for books (although I have no idea  
what language was used; but that shouldn’t matter), so there must be  
some way to pull this off.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![RSElliott\_M](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/b487fb/32.png) [@RSElliott\_M](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/RSElliott_M)\
**Post date:** [August 31, 2007, 12:40pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-amazon/113466/2 "2007-08-31T12:40:20Z")

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R. Elliott M. wrote:

> I’m trying to develop a Facebook application in Rails that allows users  
> to look up certain products on Amazon. I know Amazon has Amazon Web  
> Services, and I thought this would give me a clue as to how to proceed,  
> but it so far appears those services are highly specific. ? I’m totally  
> lost here. How should I go about allowing users to use my application  
> to search and retrieve records from [Amazon.com](http://Amazon.com)? I saw other Facebook  
> applications use Amazon for searching for books (although I have no idea  
> what language was used; but that shouldn’t matter), so there must be  
> some way to pull this off.

You probably want to investigate one of the Ruby/Amazon libraries, such  
as Ruby/Amazon ([Ruby/Amazon](http://www.caliban.org/ruby/ruby-amazon.shtml)) to get the data  
from Amazon. Serving it up to Facebook users should be very similar to  
serving to ordinary users.

## –

Autopendium :: Stuff about old cars  
[http://autopendium.com](http://autopendium.com)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![RSElliott\_M](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/b487fb/32.png) [@RSElliott\_M](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/RSElliott_M)\
**Post date:** [September 2, 2007, 12:49am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-amazon/113466/3 "2007-09-02T00:49:27Z")

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Hmm, it seems like Ruby/Amazon is outdated with the most recent API,  
although maybe the source code will provide some clues as to how to  
about the design otherwise.