So, in solidarity with the ruling, I’d like to disclose that I use AmazonAssociates program when I link to stuff on Amazon.com.

Amazon Affiliate Linking

Here’s how the program works. I make my links to Amazon products, “affiliate links”. If you click one then buy the item, I get a kickback (usually 4% the purchase price). I do not get paid if you click the links, only if you click the links and buy the item. I do not get paid just for showing the links on my blog. I don’t get paid if you decide the buy the item a few days later, and navigate to it without clicking a link on my blog.

To date I’ve “made” $1.73 over about 3 years; but Amazon won’t disburse payments under $10, so I’ve yet to see a single cent.

Why I Bother

There are books and items that I think are worth linking to. Whoever I link to gets a (microscopic) boost from my blog. I like that Amazon gives me something in return — at least in theory. And that’s why I take the time to use affiliate links, even though I’ve gotten a $0 return for 3 years of work.

Yeah, I guess there’s some unbridled optimism in there too. If I could only be one of the top 100 technology blogs, I’d have enough readers to actually make money.

I also generally feel comfortable linking to Amazon.com. Their prices aren’t always the best, but they’re competitive on the whole. Their service is the standard for online resellers. I figure readers have a very good idea of what they’re getting if they buy from them. And yes, sometimes I do direct people to buy somewhere else.

And to be absolutely clear, everything I’ve reviewed or recommended to date was purchased with my money. If I’m lucky enough to get gifts from some amazing company (hint!), I’ll disclose it in my review.

Summary

If any link on my blog points to amazon.com (like this), I get a small (usually 4%) commission off the item iff you buy it immediately after clicking the link.

Good recommendation systems are a win for everyone. But inevitably, they show correlations to undesirable products, and in that sense they also all give condemnations, which sometimes can be quite funny.

According to amazon.com, customers who bought a tube of Swiss Navy Cream Masturbation Lubricant also bought Learning Python, 3rd Edition,

Find Your Own

The only trick to finding a juicy “condemnation” is to start with something embarrassing to buy. Amazon has a filtering system, so regardless of how strong the correlation is, it shouldn’t ever show embarassing purchaces from the Learning Python book page. And even for systems without a filter, this approach maximizes your chances of finding something, since every recommendation from a disreputable product is a condemnation.

I’m not sure where the sweet-spot in popularity is for finding a condemnation.

If an item has fewer purchases overall, that should mean that it takes only a few purchases of it and X for X to be recommended. On the other hand, that means fewer items will be recommended from it.

Things can be too popular. Because Amazon only shows up to 100 recommendations, if an item has enough purchases, all of the recommendations from it will be so similar to it, that finding a “deviant” condemnation is impossible. Again I don’t know exactly where this popularity threshold is.

Good luck!

I had some time to kill today, waiting for a catalytic converter replacement, and the book Design Your Life: The Pleasures and Perils of Everyday Things caught my eye. It’s loosely about about the value of design and how to apply UX to everyday life. I’ve only read¹ a dozen or so pages of it in a bookstore, but so far I definitely recommend the book.

Visually it’s is appealing (but of course it has to be!), and accessibly written.

But what really impressed me the most, is that it gives you a critical eye and a reason to ask ‘why?’. And I think that’s the most important thing you can get out of a book on UX/design/accessibility.

The authors also have have a website which looks to be every bit as good as the book.

¹You’re probably wondering why I didn’t buy the book if I like it enough to recommend it. Well, I had my iPhone with me in the store, and I looked up the price on amazon. It was half what the brick-and-mortar store was asking. So I didn’t buy it. Speaking of which, if you order the book through any of the links on this page, I get a small commission from Amazon. So please do doubt my recommendation — that’s what critical thinking is all about!