As this recent article on TechCrunch reminded us, we think it’s really cool when Woot-fan programmers create their own Woot-based apps, like the various Woot-Off trackers
and Woot widgets out there. So cool, in fact, that we’re offering a
programming interface to make it easier to create custom apps.
As you can see at http://www.woot.com/salerss.aspx, it’s basically a standard RSS XML
feed with some added Woot sale extensions for properties like price,
condition, sold-out status, etc. (There’s one for Wine.Woot, too, at http://wine.woot.com/salerss.aspx.)
Designing your apps to look at this page is a lot better than scraping
our regular front page, for a whole bunch of reasons: the XML
code is easier to work with, it puts less load on our servers, and your
apps will be more stable because code changes to our front page won’t
affect them. And the programming interface is just as up-to-date as our
front page, even during Woot-Offs.
Feel free to show off
your custom Woot widgets, gadgets, whatnots, and flibbertigibbets in
the discussion below. And let us know what you’d like to see us do to
encourage more of this kind of thing. We know we already have a
substantial bank of 3rd-party apps – it’s our policy never to
discourage anyone from doing unpaid work for us.
