[parametrek]

Web dev? Affiliate links.

Consider a consumer item you are passionate about. Walk through the typical shopping process, either as a newb or as an enthusiast. Identify all the pain points, every bit of friction. Consider everything you've listed as an embarrassment that you will personally make right. Build the smoothest, fastest, most respectful experience possible. Compile lots of information too - your goal is to become the best resource on the internet. Put the user first at all times. And when appropriate add affiliate links. (In my case only 27% of URLs are affiliated.)

Why is respecting the user the #1 priority? Because you do not want to look like an affiliate content mill! Go read the blogs that teach you how to affiliate^W build dark patterns and do the opposite of what they suggest.

Of course even if you are unquestionably the best resource on the internet, some communities will still tar and feather you for having affiliate links. I was very lucky to find a great and supportive community.

[Zak]

I'm a moderator of one of the communities in which your site is relevant, http://reddit.com/r/flashlight

We do see some bad affiliate behavior there, though most of it gets automatically filtered. When it doesn't, the community usually ruthlessly mocks people who post low-quality content that's obviously just intended to make money.

Almost every time somebody shows up asking for purchase advice, somebody links parametrek.com because it's so useful. You want a flashlight under 120mm long with integrated charging that has a removable, non-proprietary battery? Here are 34 of them.

Make something people want.

[vijayr]

that site is neat. Would've never guessed there are so many options for a flashlight, of all things. I'm curious how these sites manage to keep the pricing up-to-date.

[Zak]

Those are just the major brands. There's a lot more only available from mildly sketchy Chinese sites, most of it bad but some of it excellent. There are exotic customs that cost hundreds and sometimes even thousands of dollars. There's a significant hobbyist/DIY community as well, even open-source driver designs and firmwares.

[vijayr]

I guess this is a model that can be applied to a lot of products/services - even for things like Job Search, apartment search etc, as long as the data is reliable and is in machine readable format. I forget the name of the site - few years ago, Google bought a site that helped people look for laptops, but instead of saying 8GB RAM, it said "run photoshop fast" or something like that.

[parametrek]

Thanks.

The pricing is the easiest part. As an affiliate you get access to an API that lets you query it. Of course it is heavily rate limited and sometimes fails outright. Accessing certain parts of the API comes with strings attached too. All of the non-amazon prices I refresh by hand every few months.