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Marching towards public beta

Last week was really interesting, and also really tiring. I spent it in San Francisco, with a day-trip to San Diego, in a whirlwind of meetings spanning my day job, Remix and some other things that are really fascinating.

For example, did you know that Sun has a platform for app development called Zembly? I did not, until they demoed it in our meeting on Wednesday morning. Neat stuff, and we're going to talk to them about getting Remix into the set of embedded APIs.

But what's really on my mind right now is the public beta. We're sort of in-between right now -- the portal is in public beta, with anyone able to self-provision for access, and registration isn't required to see the documentation. But the API is in private beta, with us manually activating keys. We're not really concerned about flooding the servers, since our testing has showed that we handle traffic quite well, and we can add new server slices as needed to support demand. The real concern is that there are some things we need to get in order for us to be able to call it a true public beta program.

Since this is an open API, I figured I'd be open about what we're working on and get feedback on it.

First is the API itself. We need the ability for you as a developer to hit a specific version. We need a release methodology for versions documented. We need standards for versioning documented. And we need to decide how many versions back we are going to support.

We also need to do some process cleanup -- the refresh is currently daily and can be faster, and the primary catalog refresh needs to move 12 hours earlier. You know, little stuff.

Second is the portal. We talked with Mashery about possibly using Google Groups in addition to the portal to provide additional functionality. Pivotal Labs suggested using GetSatisfaction, which is interesting, although I think the potential for people to come into the Remix area and complain about Best Buy might make it hard to focus. Please note that I'm not saying those complaints aren't valid, I'm just saying they'd be off-topic for the API.

Third, and tied to the portal, is staffing. We're incredibly light right now -- just two people full-time on Remix, with others (like me) taking time from other jobs to help out. We've identified a need for a community manager, someone who can help us manage the portal and ensure that we're actively listening to our user community, but we don't have a candidate identified.

Once we get through these three things, I believe we'll be ready for public beta. We won't be done, of course, but that's not a problem. I'm used to that. :)

If you have comments or feedback, please let me know @bestbuy.com -- I'm kevin.matheny there.

Affiliate Program

Some of the comments on blog posts out there in the wild are asking if we have some kind of affiliate program.

The short answer is yes.  https://signup.cj.com/member/brandedPublisherSignUp.do?air_refmerchantid=2045991&h=488

I'm interested in feedback on the program. Post here or email me. I'm kevin.matheny, and I'm at bestbuy.com. And I approve this message. :)

It's starting to seem real to me now.

I'm in San Diego today, talking to Intuit about their ATG implementation.  BestBuy.com runs on ATG, and keeping it running is my day job, and Intuit has a tax-time traffic/transaction peak that's bigger than our Black Thursday, so this is really interesting stuff. But I'm having a hard time sitting still, because my Twitter stream is filled with my friends telling me that there are blog posts showing up about Remix.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/23/the-api-bug-hits-old-retail-and-old-media/

http://radar.oreilly.com/2008/09/open-beats-closed-best-buys-ne.html

Welcome Web 20 and Google Zeitgeist...

We mentioned that we are officially open for the public beta of the site and private beta of the API key at Web 2.0 in New York City today. If you're stopping by to check us out...welcome!

Dave

URL change...

All,

Please note that the correct URL to hit for your queries should be http://remix.api.mashery.com. We're in the process of changing it to http://api.remix.bestbuy.com...but that seems to be taking a bit. As soon as we get it changed, we'll post it here. Just a note, both will continue to work for the near to mid-term.

Dave

Product search is complete

Hey all,

The product search query functionality is complete...we've updated the API documentation with information...check it out and tell us what you think!

Dave

Product search nearly complete...

Hey all,

Might as well get started with some good news...product search query is nearly complete! You can now query based on product names and keyword...we'll get the docs on how to do this up as soon as possible.

Also, we're going official in the next couple of weeks. We'll be switching out from demo mode to beta mode, which means better, faster, bigger servers...better response times, etc. The switch-outs will be done in the background, so you should have no technical impacts. If you do, email me at dave.micko@bestbuy.com.

Dave

Welcome

Hey all...welcome to Best Buy Remix.

I just sent this out to a bunch of people, I thought I'd post it here, as well....

Look for more posts coming soon..

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Hi! We’re a bunch of folks at Best Buy corporate headquarters, and we’ve been developing an exciting project that we’d like to ask your help with.

First, let me tell you a little bit about the project. It’s called Remix and basically, we’re developing an open API to access all of the data that feeds www.bestbuy.com. So, all of the rich information featured on Best Buy’s extensive, deep and content rich web site will now be available publicly via a simple, REST-based API call. You can read all about it, and apply for a key for the API at the Remix portal at http://remix.bestbuy.com.

Over the last couple of months, we’ve been heads down; focused on writing the API and the supporting documentation and we’re finally ready to start sharing this resource with the world. From developing a better bestbuy.com, to creating specialty focused widgets, to making a themed web site, Remix should enable anyone to shake up the data that makes bestbuy.com and reform it in their own image.

This is the part where we’d like to ask for your help. Up to now our job has been to provide this resource to the world; but we don’t want to tell the world what they should do with the information, given the chance. We’re just beginning the private beta phase of the project, and we’re not sure what will come out of it, other than whatever it is, it’ll be interesting. So, given the chance to Remix Best Buy, what would you do? Would you create the world’s best Ska site, featuring a comprehensive, encyclopedic list of Ska releases, with album images, descriptions and fulfillment backed up by bestbuy.com (Ok, don’t take that one, I’m already doing it…)?  Would you create a Facebook application recommending the perfect theater room set-up? Would you create the ultimate fan site for your favorite artist? Would you add images of network gear to your home networking blog?

E-mail me at dave.micko@bestbuy.com and tell me what you would do if you had the chance to Remix Best Buy. We’d love to hear from you.

Dave Micko
Project Lead, Remix
dave.micko@bestbuy.com

Hello World

 I guess we're in private beta now. We've given out the username and password for access to an initial set of developers, mostly within Best Buy but also some outside. The API is live, albeit running on the development box. The portal works, and generates API keys. We have our first Forum post (thanks, Jay!). And now our first actual blog post.

So hello, world. :) It's going to be a fun ride.

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