1 hr
How Amazon Built the World’s Biggest and Smartest Product Catalog | Rebecca Allen Invent like an Owner with Dave Schappell
-
- Careers
Today, in the Invent Like An Owner Podcast, Dave speaks with Rebecca Allen. They travel through memory lane by talking about the restructuring of Amazon’s catalog using Base 36, the complications of recycling ISBNs that led to the creation of Amazon’s Standard Identification Number (ASIN), how the Title Authority feature helped customers find books through associations, the seemingly impossible to accomplish Used Books category, and so much more.
Rebecca Allen is a former Software Engineer at Amazon from March 1996 to September 1998. She helped in the programming of creating and maintaining the book catalog, creating tools to modify the Amazon catalog, and much more.
Episode Resources:
Rebecca Allen’s LinkedInInterview with Amazon’s Technical Co-founder And Employee #1, Shel KaphanInterview with engineer Paul Davis (Second Employee at Amazon)Find Dave on LinkedIn and TwitterSponsored by Skilljar.com founded by ex-Amazonians Sandi Lin and Jason Stewart. Skilljar is transforming the way enterprises onboard, engage, and retain their customers.
What to Listen For:
00:00 Intro02:36 Discovering Amazon and then joining the team05:25 Hired to work on catalog and search engine07:12 The original catalog sources weren’t customer facing10:16 Who made the requests to edit the catalog 11:27 Developing the typo tool to allow the catalog department to fix content errors14:03 The complications of recycling ISBNs; building the Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN)21:31 People were worried about the backward compatibility of ASINs24:09 ASINs have been increasing rapidly over the years27:37 Base 36 is a really unique solution, but has worked extremely well29:26 Definition of Biblio Records34:38 What is Title Authority?37:21 Helping readers find what they want through associations41:38 Have ASINs been licensed or was it built just for Amazon?42:35 Introducing the Used Books catalog from the Library of Congress45:36 Order database broke down when Used Books was launched48:47 Differing opinions and the pressure to convince people50:58 Coming up with alphabetical search results54:21 How the catalog set up Amazon competitively57:00 “If you know your problem, your solution will be better.” - Rebecca Allen
Today, in the Invent Like An Owner Podcast, Dave speaks with Rebecca Allen. They travel through memory lane by talking about the restructuring of Amazon’s catalog using Base 36, the complications of recycling ISBNs that led to the creation of Amazon’s Standard Identification Number (ASIN), how the Title Authority feature helped customers find books through associations, the seemingly impossible to accomplish Used Books category, and so much more.
Rebecca Allen is a former Software Engineer at Amazon from March 1996 to September 1998. She helped in the programming of creating and maintaining the book catalog, creating tools to modify the Amazon catalog, and much more.
Episode Resources:
Rebecca Allen’s LinkedInInterview with Amazon’s Technical Co-founder And Employee #1, Shel KaphanInterview with engineer Paul Davis (Second Employee at Amazon)Find Dave on LinkedIn and TwitterSponsored by Skilljar.com founded by ex-Amazonians Sandi Lin and Jason Stewart. Skilljar is transforming the way enterprises onboard, engage, and retain their customers.
What to Listen For:
00:00 Intro02:36 Discovering Amazon and then joining the team05:25 Hired to work on catalog and search engine07:12 The original catalog sources weren’t customer facing10:16 Who made the requests to edit the catalog 11:27 Developing the typo tool to allow the catalog department to fix content errors14:03 The complications of recycling ISBNs; building the Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN)21:31 People were worried about the backward compatibility of ASINs24:09 ASINs have been increasing rapidly over the years27:37 Base 36 is a really unique solution, but has worked extremely well29:26 Definition of Biblio Records34:38 What is Title Authority?37:21 Helping readers find what they want through associations41:38 Have ASINs been licensed or was it built just for Amazon?42:35 Introducing the Used Books catalog from the Library of Congress45:36 Order database broke down when Used Books was launched48:47 Differing opinions and the pressure to convince people50:58 Coming up with alphabetical search results54:21 How the catalog set up Amazon competitively57:00 “If you know your problem, your solution will be better.” - Rebecca Allen
1 hr