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by fadys 2766 days ago
I built https://hnrecommends.com a little while ago. It's the start of a curated list of Hacker News recommendations. I'm adding recommendations and products daily.

It's made a few dollars from affiliate links so far.

3 comments

Thanks, that looks quite interesting. I have already found a book I might like.

> I'm adding recommendations and products daily. Do you add the recommendations manually or do you use a crawler/API to copy the comment? How automatic is it?

Finally, I have two suggestions: You're only selling to people in the US. Maybe you could also add links to other Amazon domains (or use a service like geni.us)?

And how about linking back to the comment thread? Sometimes, a comment only makes sense in its context, and I couldn't find a link back.

I do it all manually, but I use the API to get the actual comment text. I have been collecting recommendations for years. This is my way of organizing and sharing them.

Amazon has a service called OneLink that supposedly routes users to the Amazon store that's closest to their country (presumably, from their IP address). I'm using it (a simple script tag) but I don't know how reliable it is.

Thanks, I was wondering if you can parse all comments for a link to Amazon or something (but even that probably wouldn't get the recommendations without links).

At least for me, OneLink doesn't work. Apparently you need to be in the US, Canada or UK; the other countries aren't supported so far. Pity.

As you noted, you would still miss many recommendations without an Amazon link.

But even so, that would kind of defeat the purpose; I don't just want to aggregate recommendations. I want to include, more so, the ones that are interesting than frequent.

Additionally, besides books, I'll be posting other types of recommendations (travel, hardware, etc.).

Ah, thanks for clearing up my misunderstanding. That makes it even more interesting!
From Japan with AdBlock it took me to amazon.com, but did take me to amazon.co.jp after disabling it.
Yeah, AdBlock disables the OneLink functionality.
Criticism and downvotes u have received aside, I like the idea! consolidating the recommendations adds value. This is smthg I would use.
Using other peoples recommendations and making affiliate dollars off of them seems unethical to me. It's not even your content.