Amazon Web Services in Excel Spreadsheet

associateamazonI mentioned earlier an interest in the Amazon Research Services in Excel, mainly out of curiosity. Well after killing some time with the long tutorial and downloaded documentation, I still hadn’t arrived at a working solution.

I quit trying when I found an awesome demo Excel spreadsheet amongst the uncompressed download folder. Screenshot.

Basically all the nuts and bolts are there for querying the Amazon Research Services and returning the data in an Excel spreadsheet, and doing so with a minimal amount of code.

For those interested in incorporating Amazon Web Services data in a spreadsheet:

1. Download and Run this file

2. Goto the Folder “Office Samples”

3. Goto the Folder “OfficeCreateAnAmazon

ResearchServiceSample”

4. Open the Spreadsheet MyAmazon.xls

I’m not sure of any practical uses for this yet, if you do please share. Maybe some Amazon lookup UDF’s? Or possibly there is a creative way to monetize the addins people make, instead of selling them outright?

About Subscription ID

You usually need a Subscription ID or Token to use Amazon Web Services, however with this Microsoft download there is one already included in the code. Still, I recommend getting your own (it’s an easy and automated process).

sidenote50Sidenote on Monetization… After I finish writing this post I’ve got a 70$ product to buy on Amazon. If there was an addin I used frequently or shareware I really liked, and I downloaded them for free; I wouldn’t hesitate to click through an Amazon associate link embedded in the product and support the author. Possibly on the about page?

I’m not an affiliate expert, but a quick guess is: 70$ x 5% = 3.50$. I’d much rather give that to somebody deserving and not let Amazon keep it.