Stephen Pratley: A Work In Progress

For tonight’s #LondonEErs, here’s the presentation: http://slidesha.re/aEpQfu #eecms

RT @caboodledesign: We’ve got a free ticket for @thinkvisibility - Sat 4th Sept - RT to win (ends 5pm 26th Aug)

The Facebook Places Logo - It’s a 4 in a square, right? http://twitpic.com/2i0ym8

Google’s Commerce Search is an enterprise level search engine designed for querying structured data such as product catalogues. It has all the advantages of Google’s search algorithm (misspellings, plurals etc etc) and some features to help users drill down to the products they want, just as they do at Google Shopping Search.

It also comes with a price tag of $25,000 a month and needs a lot of setup. Ouch!

For anyone already putting their products into Google Base though, there is an alternative which will give you all the algorithm advantages at zero cash cost.

Use the Google Base API to pull data from your site alone, then process the XML results and show them on a search results page.

Here is an example which you can try out at http://www.google.com/base/api/demo/html/demo.html

For this to work you need to be logged in with an account which already has products in Google Base

Query (HTTP GET)

This is the request we send to Google after authentication

Query URI: http://google.com/base/feeds/items?bq=digital+camera

Request

GET /base/feeds/items?bq=digital+camera
Content-Type: application/atom+xml
Authorization: AuthSub token="1/5VtedQ9nTrrFsKW32PvVOJtZE7CyZsE6ZaTvrbaTpmM"
X-Google-Key: key=[authentication key generated at above URLL]

This is the data we get back:

Response

200 OK
Content-Type: application/atom+xml; charset=UTF-8
Expires: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 08:31:17 GMT
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 08:31:17 GMT
Cache-Control: private, max-age=0, must-revalidate, no-transform
Vary: Accept, X-GData-Authorization, GData-Version
GData-Version: 1.0
Last-Modified: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 08:31:17 GMT
Content-Encoding: gzip
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN
X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block
Server: GSE



<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
  <feed xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom' xmlns:openSearch='http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/' xmlns:gm='http://base.google.com/ns-metadata/1.0' xmlns:g='http://base.google.com/ns/1.0' xmlns:batch='http://schemas.google.com/gdata/batch'>
    <id>http://www.google.com/base/feeds/items</id>
    <updated>2010-08-18T08:31:17.160Z</updated>
    <title type='text'>Items matching query: (digital camera) [customer id(int):6091031]</title>
    <link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://base.google.com'/>
    <link rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#feed' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.google.com/base/feeds/items'/>
    <link rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#post' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.google.com/base/feeds/items'/>
    <link rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#batch' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.google.com/base/feeds/items/batch'/>
    <link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.google.com/base/feeds/items?start-index=1&amp;max-results=25&amp;bq=digital+camera'/>
    <author>
      <name>Google Inc.</name>
      <email>base@google.com</email>
    </author>
    <generator version='1.0' uri='http://base.google.com'>GoogleBase</generator>
    <openSearch:totalResults>1</openSearch:totalResults>
    <openSearch:startIndex>1</openSearch:startIndex>
    <openSearch:itemsPerPage>25</openSearch:itemsPerPage>
    <g:customer_id type='int'>6091031</g:customer_id>
    <entry>
      <id>http://www.google.com/base/feeds/items/15485506071300697913</id>
      <published>2010-07-12T23:00:00.000Z</published>
      <updated>2010-08-17T23:00:00.000Z</updated>
      <category scheme='http://base.google.com/categories/itemtypes' term='Products'/>
      <title type='text'>D3 Digital SLR Camera by Nikon</title>
      <content type='html'>Flagship pro D-SLR with a 12.1-MP FX-format CMOS sensor, blazing 9 fps shooting at full FX resolution and low-noise performance up to 6400 ISO.

Nikon’s original 12.1-megapixel FX-format (23.9 x 36mm) CMOS sensor: Couple Nikon’s exclusive digital image processing system with the 12.1-megapixel FX-format and you’ll get breathtakingly rich images while also reducing noise to unprecedented levels with even higher ISOs.

Continuous shooting at up to 9 frames per second: At full FX resolution and up to 11fps in the DX crop mode, the D3 offers uncompromised shooting speeds for fast-action and sports photography.</content>
      <link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://shineecommerce.com/products/d3-digital-slr-camera-by-nikon/'/>
      <link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.google.com/base/feeds/items/15485506071300697913'/>
      <link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.google.com/base/feeds/items/15485506071300697913'/>
      <author>
        <name>ShineEcommerce</name>
      </author>
      <g:id type='text'>13</g:id>
      <g:price type='floatUnit'>4999.95 gbp</g:price>
      <g:target_country type='text'>GB</g:target_country>
      <g:condition type='text'>new</g:condition>
      <g:expiration_date type='dateTime'>2010-09-16T23:00:00Z</g:expiration_date>
      <g:customer type='text'>ShineEcommerce</g:customer>
      <g:image_link type='url'>http://shineecommerce.com/images/uploads/d3_grande.jpg</g:image_link>
      <g:customer_id type='int'>6091031</g:customer_id>
      <g:item_type type='text'>Products</g:item_type>
      <g:item_language type='text'>EN</g:item_language>
      <gd:feedLink xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' rel='media' href='http://www.google.com/base/feeds/items/15485506071300697913/media' countHint='1'/>
    </entry>
  </feed>

As you can see, the response data includes enough information to build a branded page, on our own site, using no competitor products, and with the same layered navigation functionality as Google’s own Shopping Search.

So much for the theory, now for the practice, over the next few days we’ll be building a search results page driven by Google base data on our demonstration ShineEcommerce website
ShineEcommerce is an ecommerce system using the excellent Expression Engine CMS, the CartThrob shopping cart extension, and is designed to be simple to integrate with a variety of best-of-breed solutions for ecommerce product management, merchandising and marketing.
Using Google’s search instead of the native on-site search provided by Expression Engine is an excellent example of this approach.

Anyone know how to change a venue name in Foursquare? Our local has just been taken over. Trying to give the new owner a hand.