Saturday, August 25, 2007

Music By Selected Artists

"Music CDs" is one of Amazon.com's best-selling categories, but my sales have been less that spectacular. My current theory is that people don't usually search for music by genre using the broad keywords Amazon provides.

Typically, they search for a favorite artist or group. There are so many, it's hard to know where to begin, especially if you're not getting any feedback.

Some time ago, I wrote an article about one of Squidoo's "Orphan Groups" namely "Lensmaster Index: The Editor's of Rolling Stone", in which an eclectic selection of 124 groups is featured. The Rolling Stone Reviews seemed like a good place to start.

Here then are my current feeds of individual groups and artists:

  1. 3 Doors Down at a Glance
  2. 311 at a Glance
  3. 50 Cent at a Glance
  4. Aerosmith at a Glance
  5. The All-American Rejects at a Glance
  6. Johann Sebastian Bach at a Glance
  7. The Beach Boys at a Glance
  8. Ludwig van Beethoven at a Glance
  9. Beyonce at a Glance
  10. Black-Eyed Peas at a Glance
  11. Mary J. Blige at a Glance
  12. Blink 182 at a Glance
  13. Bon Jovi at a Glance
  14. David Bowie at a Glance
  15. Jimmy Buffett at a Glance
  16. Michael Buble at a Glance
  17. Mariah Carey at a Glance
  18. Johnny Cash at a Glance
  19. Kenny Chesney at a Glance
  20. Kelly Clarkson at a Glance
  21. Coldplay at a Glance
  22. Counting Crows at a Glance
  23. Creedence Clearwater Revival at a Glance
  24. Sheryl Crow at a Glance
  25. Eric Clapton at a Glance
  26. The Cure at a Glance
  27. Death Cab For Cutie at a Glance
  28. Depeche Mode at a Glance
  29. Destiny's Child at a Glance
  30. Celine Dion at a Glance
  31. Disturbed at a Glance
  32. The Dixie Chicks at a Glance
  33. Bob Dylan at a Glance
  34. E-40 at a Glance
  35. Eminem at a Glance
  36. Enya at a Glance
  37. Fleetwood Mac at a Glance
  38. Foo Fighters at a Glance
  39. Nelly Furtado at a Glance
  40. Marvin Gaye at a Glance
  41. Goo Goo Dolls at a Glance
  42. Gorillaz at a Glance
  43. David Gray at a Glance
  44. Green Day at a Glance
  45. Guns 'N' Roses at a Glance
  46. Ben Harper at a Glance
  47. Jimi Hendrix at a Glance
  48. Faith Hill at a Glance
  49. Hoobastank at a Glance
  50. Incubus at a Glance
  51. Michael Jackson at a Glance
  52. Billy Joel at a Glance
  53. Elton John at a Glance
  54. Jack Johnson at a Glance
  55. Norah Jones at a Glance
  56. Journey at a Glance
  57. Toby Keith at a Glance
  58. R. Kelly at a Glance
  59. Korn at a Glance
  60. Alison Krauss (and Union Station) at a Glance
  61. Nick Lachey at a Glance
  62. Jonathan Larson at a Glance
  63. Avril Lavigne at a Glance
  64. Lifehouse at a Glance
  65. Lynyrd Skynyrd at a Glance
  66. Madonna at a Glance
  67. Barry Manilow at a Glance
  68. Bob Marley at a Glance
  69. Maroon 5 at a Glance
  70. Matchbox 20 at a Glance (Matchbox Twenty)
  71. John Mayer at a Glance
  72. Tim McGraw at a Glance
  73. Sarah McLachlan at a Glance
  74. Moby at a Glance
  75. Alanis Morissette at a Glance
  76. Van Morrison at a Glance
  77. Nelly at a Glance
  78. Willie Nelson at a Glance
  79. Nickelback at a Glance
  80. Nine Inch Nails at a Glance
  81. Notorious B.I.G. at a Glance (Biggie Smalls)
  82. Brad Paisley at a Glance
  83. Sean Paul at a Glance
  84. Pearl Jam at a Glance
  85. Tom Petty at a Glance (with & without The Heartbreakers)
  86. Pink Floyd at a Glance
  87. Elvis Presley at a Glance
  88. Queen at a Glance
  89. Rascal Flatts at a Glance
  90. Relient K at a Glance
  91. R.E.M. at a Glance
  92. Kenny Rogers at a Glance
  93. The Rolling Stones at a Glance
  94. Josh Rouse at a Glance
  95. Sade at a Glance
  96. Santana at a Glance
  97. Shakira at a Glance
  98. Tupac Shakur at a Glance (2Pac)
  99. Paul Simon at a Glance
  100. Frank Sinatra at a Glance
  101. Smashing Pumpkins at a Glance
  102. Snow Patrol at a Glance
  103. Britney Spears at a Glance
  104. Bruce Springsteen at a Glance
  105. Staind at a Glance
  106. Rod Stewart at a Glance
  107. George Strait at a Glance
  108. The Strokes at a Glance
  109. Sublime at a Glance
  110. System Of A Down at a Glance
  111. Taking Back Sunday at a Glance
  112. T.I. at a Glance (T.I.P.)
  113. Three 6 Mafia at a Glance
  114. U2 at a Glance
  115. Keith Urban at a Glance
  116. Usher at a Glance
  117. Van Halen at a Glance
  118. Weezer at a Glance
  119. The White Stripes at a Glance
  120. John Williams at a Glance
  121. Stevie Wonder at a Glance
  122. Yellowcard at a Glance
  123. Ying Yang Twins at a Glance
  124. Neil Young at a Glance

Friday, August 24, 2007

Amazon "Movers & Shakers" Feeds

When I started this Blog, I intended to use it primarily to share some of my discoveries about Google's page-crawling and ranking systems, and perhaps improve the traffic to some of my obscure, dusty websites. Well, it seems that Google changes their algorithms so fast that anything I might deduce about their inner workings is obsolete the minute it's published.

Presently, I am working with Amazon Web Services to create what I feel is extremely useful content, although Google seems generally to disagree. For the foreseeable future I will be posting links to some of my favorite feeds here, with breif explanations.

Most of my feeds are based on Amazon Web Services, which apparently leads Google to deem them "thin affiliate" links. Some of the better ones are "screen scraped" because they are base on Amazon features that aren't available via AWS (at least not presently. Let's begin with those:

These "Movers & Shakers" feeds are a daily digest of the products in 29 categories that have shown the greatest percentage increase in sales over the last 24 hours. They are great for spotting trends and keep in content fresh. Google seems to be ignoring them completely.

  1. "Movers & Shakers" in Apparel @ Amazon.com
  2. "Movers & Shakers" in Automotive @ Amazon.com
  3. "Movers & Shakers" in Baby Products @ Amazon.com
  4. "Movers & Shakers" in Beauty @ Amazon.com
  5. "Movers & Shakers" in Books @ Amazon.com
  6. "Movers & Shakers" in Cameras & Photography @ Amazon.com
  7. "Movers & Shakers" in Cell Phones & Service @ Amazon.com
  8. "Movers & Shakers" in Computer & Video Games @ Amazon.com
  9. "Movers & Shakers" in Computers & PC Hardware @ Amazon.com
  10. "Movers & Shakers" in DVD @ Amazon.com
  11. "Movers & Shakers" in Electronics @ Amazon.com
  12. "Movers & Shakers" in Gourmet Foods @ Amazon.com
  13. "Movers & Shakers" in Grocery @ Amazon.com
  14. "Movers & Shakers" in Health & Personal Care @ Amazon.com
  15. "Movers & Shakers" in Home & Garden @ Amazon.com
  16. "Movers & Shakers" in Industrial & Scientific @ Amazon.com
  17. "Movers & Shakers" in Jewelry & Watches @ Amazon.com
  18. "Movers & Shakers" in Kitchen & Housewares @ Amazon.com
  19. "Movers & Shakers" in Magazines @ Amazon.com
  20. "Movers & Shakers" in Music @ Amazon.com
  21. "Movers & Shakers" in Musical Instruments @ Amazon.com
  22. "Movers & Shakers" in Office Products @ Amazon.com
  23. "Movers & Shakers" in Outdoor Living @ Amazon.com
  24. "Movers & Shakers" in Software @ Amazon.com
  25. "Movers & Shakers" in Sporting Goods @ Amazon.com
  26. "Movers & Shakers" in Tools & Hardware @ Amazon.com
  27. "Movers & Shakers" in Toys & Games @ Amazon.com
  28. "Movers & Shakers" in Unbox Video Downloads @ Amazon.com
  29. "Movers & Shakers" in VHS Video Cassettes @ Amazon.com