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Rating: 
Summary: A good practical introduction to web services
Review: Amazon Web Services provides good readable information; readers who have limited background in working with web services and the technologies involved will benefit. This is a great way to start learning about web services in general and Amazon Web Services in particular.
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Summary: Amazon Web Services in Detail
Review: I don't regularly program anything, so I approached this book with more than a little concern about my ability to comprehend it. I've created a few VBA macros for Word, but that's about it. This book got me going very quickly. First, it told me what I could expect and that's something most books don't do very well. After that, it told me that Web services are actually pretty simple, and the author used coding techniques that made it apparent that he wasn't lying. In fact, let me take that back, the first example didn't really need any code--it used a specialized URL to do the job.I'll admit that I didn't read the whole book, but the author said I probably wouldn't need the whole book in the introduction. My main concern was the VBA examples, but I also tried the JavaScript examples out of curiosity. All of the examples I tried worked as the author said they would on the first try even. All of the details were there and in a logical order. The highlight of the book for me is that the author tells you what you can do with Amazon Web Services in detail. I wasn't aware that you could do all this stuff with Amazon. I have a nice new Word macro now that downloads all of the latest books from my favorite authors on a weekly basis and prints out a report for me. What used to require hours of searching now takes moments. If you're an Amazon junkie like I am, you really need this book!
Rating: 
Summary: Out of date, not useful for non-programmers
Review: I knew going in that this would not have much use for me... that's okay, one tidbit of information could pay for the book many times over.
What i got was a rehash of the now ancient history (2003) versions of Amazon Web Services, and nothing useful from a pratical standpoint.
I didn't expect to use the programing stuff (non outdate), but thought the author might throw in at least one example of someone useing this goldmine for a functioning task.
I'm giving a 2 stars because it doesn't have some of the promised programing discussion, but recomend anyone looking to market books, etc to avoid this one.
Rating:
Summary: Amazon in a Nutshell
Review: I've been hearing a lot about web services, but everything seems to be vaporware or hyped so much you don't know what to believe. This book puts Amazon Web Services in perspective. It helped me to discover the good and bad stuff without all the hype. At first I thought this was going to be just another Microsoft book, but the author really does cover other languages. My language of choice of Java, but I tried out some of the web page examples too. All the code works great and it includes a lot of comments so you don't get lost. The author made some aspects of Amazon Web Services especially approachable by explaining them in real English. The licensing agreement description was especially helpful because it helped me avoid potential problems with my application. I also talked with the author over email. He answered all of the book questions I had. If there is any fault in this book it's that it wasn't long enough. The author covers all of the services, but you have to read about some of them using another language. I guess it's too much to ask to give me every example in every language, but it would be nice. At least you can find everything you need somewhere in the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Useful for beginners
Review: If you've never been exposed to XML or SOAP and using web services then this is a good book. However, it is by no means a comprehensive treatment of the subject. The reality is that if you download the SDK and spend a little time on the internet you can find all of the same information.
Rating: 
Summary: Amazon needs tinkerers
Review: With all of the hype about Web Services, Amazon, Google and eBay stand out as offering actual Web Services, on real databases that are many gigabytes in size, as opposed to the much smaller simulated databases that other experimental Web Services might deal with. This book explains Amazon's approach. Mainly for developers at this stage. This is largely a programmer level interaction. While it is driven by the clear commercial prospects of third parties being able to sell through Amazon, the necessary interfacing is still too complicated for the average nontechnical person. Which may actually be incentive for some programmer to write a simpler, general purpose interface to Amazon's offerings. All this is still early days, of course. What is needed is for people to get their hands dirty with this stuff and dream up the next stage. How about it, then?
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