Best Buy Sample Widget Gallery

Initial prototype apps based on the Remix API:

Shelftalkers by Omar Abdelwahed
"Shelftakers" is the beginning of a Facebook mashup that simply asks "What do you wanna talk about?" This demo was presented on 11/18/08 at MashupCamp in Mountain View, CA. The final version on Facebook will allow users to post comments about their favorite band, for instance, complete with full-length tracks. Friends will be able to add their own comments and a threaded discussion will be maintained. At any time, people contributing or following the discussion will be able to make a purchase. This is an example of applying social graphs to shopping. The assumption is that people generally follow the opinion of friends (ie: "taste makers") when making purchases more than faceless, branded web sites.

Notes on "The Future of Ecommerce: Retailer APIs":
http://www.mashupcamp.com/wiki/index.php/FutureOfEcommerce

Live demo:
http://shelftalkers1.appspot.com/

Source repository:
http://code.google.com/p/shelftalkers/

Updates:
[1/18/09]: ShelfTalkers source is now hosted on Google Code. The latest version is a fully working Facebook application hosted on Google AppEngine.

Twitter Bot
Twitter Bot allows people to search for products via Twitter and SMS! Twitter Bot can return a store location that carries a product near you and a link to BestBuy.com.

The current usage is:
"@bbyremix find [category] [product name OR sku#] near [postal code, distance]"

where:

  • Category can equal "music", "movie", "game" or "hard" (for hardgoods).
  • Product Name is the product you are looking for. Ex- "XBox 360".
  • Sku # is the unique number associated with the product. Ex- "8301492" is the Sku # for the "XBox 360 Elite Console - Black".
  • Optional: "near" allows you to search for stores near your Postal Code and a surrounding Distance in miles.

Using the bot:
1. Sign up for Twitter (skip this step if you already have a Twitter account)
2. Follow bbyremix
3. The bbyremix bot will follow you
4. Issue the find command to bbyremix using the syntax "@bbyremix find 1234567" where 1234567 is the SKU id you're looking for.

Updates:
[11/23/08]: You can now search for music, movies, games and hardgoods. Examples:

  • @bbyremix find music U2
  • @bbyremix find movie Batman Begins
  • @bbyremix find game Farcry 2
  • @bbyremix find hard ipod

[12/14/08]: You can now search for products in stores near you! Currently, this is only available for certain hardgoods.

  • @bbyremix find hard Wii near 94103,25

SKU lookup gadget
1. go to www.igoogle.com
2. Log in
3. Click on "Add Stuff>>", on the upper right side of the page
4. Click on "Add Feed or Gadget" on left side bar at bottom
5. Copy this url into the field http://api.remix.bestbuy.com/widgets/lookup_sku.xml
6. Click OK
7. Click OK on popup
8. Click back to igoogle (top left of page)
9. Try it out (it will probably be the iframe on the top left)...plug in a sku like 8842568

Countdown gadget
This widget is a widget that allows users to say that they are waiting for a product to be released. Example: I am dieing to have a Wii so I am going to have a gadget that gives me a count down to when the Wii is going to be available in stores.


Install instructions:

1. go to www.igoogle.com
2. Log in
3. Click on "Add Stuff>>", on the upper right side of the page
4. Click on "Add Feed or Gadget" on left side bar at bottom
5. Copy this url into the field http://api.remix.bestbuy.com/widgets/count_down.xml
6. Click OK
7. Click OK on popup
8. Click back to igoogle (top left of page)
9. Go into the user preferences for the gadget (the little triangle drop-down thing on the gadget frame)...plug in a sku like 8760398

You should see a product countdown.