A new take on Amazon.com data...

Well, now that I've got your attention

The title is completely accurate whereas the numbers on TheDvdWars.com are not. I developed the original version of my page nearly two weeks ago. I have since made a rather large update and in rewriting the code, I had occasion to check TheDvdWars.com just to see how the lists compare. Well, their numbers were off by as much as 600 sales rank points (that I personally saw)!! They listed a title at 1,200-something when the real rank was 644 (as displayed on Amazon.com and HdGameDb).

If you are someone who thinks the Amazon.com sales rank data provides an accurate representation of the HD disc marketplace or at least someone who is interested in their sales rank data, why shouldn't you rely on the most accurate data? Now you can...RIGHT HERE!...

Now, for the fun partthe updates...

The first change is that there are now two different lists:

Combined Sales Rank List: This is an updated version of the page that was originally developed and released last week. A few changes were made to this page including the addition of an Archive Select List, Email This Page links, and Link To This Page link. The items in bold italics are outlined below (since they pertain to both lists).

HD DVD vs. Blu-ray List: This is a new page that displays the top sellers of each format side-by-side. The number of movies is user-selectable (Top 10, 25, 50, and 100 are available). As with the Combined Sales Rank List, the results can be sorted however you desire. There is also a Studio Summary that breaks down the studio distribution of the selected list. The Archive Select List, Email This Page links, and Link To This Page link that were all added to the Combined Sales Rank List were included on this page.

New Features:
Archive Select List - There is now a second select list on the page. I believe it's self-explanatory enough (hence no label). Select a different update date from the past 72 hours (yes, that's 144 updates!) and instantly view that data instead.

Email This Page - This link is found at the top of the page in the description as well as the bottom of a Top 10 list. On longer lists, there is also a link in the separator between every 10 records (along with Studio Summary and Back To Top links). This is where it gets fun (or at least I'd like to think so!). When you click any Email This Page link, you will be presented a form from which you can send your own message along with a specially formatted URL to up to 10 friends.

The specially formatted URL is what makes this feature so cool. When your friend clicks on the link, they will view the list you've sent them EXACTLY as you were viewing it. And I mean exactly. The selected archive, list size, sort field, and sort order are all restored to what the list looked like when you sent the link. This way you can write messages specific to the list you are viewing all along knowing they'll view the exact same list...

For instance, what if you wanted to taunt your friend about the Top 10 list containing no Blu-ray titles:

Combined HD DVD / Blu-ray List (Top 10) - 12/26/2006 1:56:33 PM
Combined HD DVD / Blu-ray List (Top 10) - 12/26/2006 9:26:32 PM
(I created these links with the Link To This Page feature)

Link To This Page - This link is found at the bottom of the page (under the Studio Summary). This link provides essentially the same functionality as the Email This Page link without the email part. Click this link and you'll be redirected to a specially formatted URL that can be copied from your browser. The selected archive, list size, sort field, and sort order are all restored to what the list looked like when you clicked the Link To This Page link. Once again, making it possible to discuss a specific list.

The site is also now updating every 30 minutes. This provides even more timely data than with hourly updates. Hopefully, there's no doubt where you'll go for your Amazon.com sales data now...

Performance - I realize this isn't really a new feature but I'm including it here since it should a pretty drastic change. At least for those on crazy fast connections; I don't have one so I'm sure the improvement I notice is negligible to what some might notice. The site has also been moved from a shared web-hosting environment to its own virtual server. This should prove to be a HUGE improvement in performance. At least it better!! This is now the only web site running on this machine. There were also rather drastic architecture updates made this past week that will positively affect response time. The site should be blazing fast! The larger lists might take a little while to completely download but the server doesn't seem to be giving any requests much thought no matter how large the list.

Since I have moved to another server, I would be interested to know if anyone is viewing the site by IP address (it's set to redirect to the new site via IP should you receive DNS info for the old site).

I'm only a member of AVS when it comes to HT forums but I realize there are many other forums out there. Without a reputation on other sites it's a bit forward to post something like this. By all means, if you frequent other sites and find my site useful please feel free to post links...

Enjoy!

P.S. There are other updates on the way. This was such a large update that covered everything from how data is imported to how it's displayed that I wanted to get it out there first before moving onto the next update. The next feature will be historical tracking/graphing. Of course, it will be as user-customizable as I can make it.

ORIGINAL POST (v1.0):
When I've been visiting The DVD Wars lately, I realized one feature I didn't notice that I thought would be nice. Since I'm a programmer and I've always been a bit curious about Amazon's Web serivces, I came up with a bit of a different take on HD DVD/Blu-ray sales rank data available from Amazon.

Intitially, I was out to solve my perceived "problem" of a lack of an integrated sales rank list in ascending order. A simple, immediate picture of the Top 10, Top 25, Top 50, Top 100, Top 250...oh, and why not a few sorting capabilities, too? Since the studio information is also readily available, I also added a studio summary.

So, take a look: http://www.hdgamedb.com/salesrank.aspx and let me know what you think. If you like it, by all means, pass it along.

Oh, and the data will refresh every hour so it might be better at providing an immediate picture. Either way, it's a different take.

Enjoy!

PS If you're a gamer and would like to add your collection, feel free...

The total Warner count is 55 vs 33 (selecting "All Sales Rank Data" in the drop down list includes all movies in both the list and summary). The other "Top" lists are all truncated lists ordered by the sales rank.

I'm not clear how it's not reflecting the real sales...at least at Amazon. Just as with The DVD Wars (and any other ranking sites), there is no representation that it's anything but Amazon's data. It's up to each individual as to how much importance they place on it. I personally feel that Amazon's numbers do a fairly decent job representing a picture that pretty much agrees with other sentiments and ratings of each product line.

No worries. No offense taken.

I see what you mean. The evening out as you look at all is due to all the really low essentially non-selling titles. That's what you're referring to, correct? The pre-orders that were just added, etc. The smaller lists are certainly closer to reality.

More than anything, I have always been curious what was going on between the #10 HD DVD at 1,500 and #2 BD at 2,800... ...now it's easy to find out!...

Hopefully that won't continue happening. It's on a rather limited server but the code is also pretty light (it's not checking Amazon with each request...that would take ~2 minutes). Hopefully it'll stay up... ...it seems to be doing better today. I'll definitely be keeping any eye on it.

Thanks for the kind words! I was always curious about Amazon's Web Services and certainly didn't want to put out a copy of The DVD Wars. Hopefully, this is different enough a view on the data that it proves useful. If nothing else, it's now clear what's going on between HD DVD's #10 title and BD's #2 title...

Regarding whether Amazon is a worthy reference. I'm not a statistician by any stretch of the imagination (which is why I offer only the hard ranking numbers and a simple summary) but I believe the size of Amazon's data sampling with regards to any data they collect/offer makes this data a decent representation of what might be going on elsewhere. Based on what I've seen in local stores, Amazon seems pretty close to spot-on; HD DVD flying off shelves at a faster rate than Blu-ray, and Blu-ray collecting dust at a faster rate than HD DVD.

I noticed that The DVD Wars seems to be updating on a daily basis. Since the import procedure only takes 2 minutes, I thought an hourly update would provide more timely data. If you visit while the site is updating, you will temporarily view the archive information from the previous day.

If you've ever seen my previous posts, you know I am rooting for HD DVD to win this battle. That being said, since I wrote the data import routine used for this site from the ground up, I know exactly what it is doing. Besides standardizing studio names (so that there's not "Warner Brothers" and "Warner Home Studios", etc.) there is NO data manipulation going on here. The "scrubbing" of invalid non-HD DVD and non-Blu-ray discs appearing in the search is accomplished automatically since Amazon includes the format in their Web Service response. Hopefully, this might set aside any concerns of data manipulation as have been expressed with regards to The DVD Wars at times.

I have made several updates this evening.
http://www.hdgamedb.com/salesrank.aspx


I have added a rank number to the right of the movie title. Thanks!

Also had to update the pricing information. Turns out the lower Amazon price is hidden somewhere else in their API.


If you hover over an arrow, a "Moved up from" or "Moved down from" message appears including the previous rank number.


I was originally going to use a blue up/down and a red up/down arrow but decided against it. This way any red arrow (even a sort arrow... ) is an up arrow and any blue arrow is a down arrow.


Thanks! I'm glad to hear that. I enjoyed building it but it's definitely nice to know others will find it useful.

Of course, as long as Blu-ray fans don't buy from Amazon, the numbers won't mean much...

I like the suggestion of adding sales rank information to the studio summary box at the bottom. I'm going to look what that would take. I just wanted to make the changes to the pricing and rank number first since they were so straight forward.

You caught me just as I was updating...D'OH!


I'll take a look. I tested Firefox and IE.

Just tested it. You also must have visited just as I was updating. Opera works fine. At least the latest version does.