How does the new Amazon thingy work ? What is the best way to use it to benefit Forumosa ? How does Forumosa get money from it ?
Look for the ASIN or ISBN number of the product on Amazon. Paste it into the field provided. Simple.
Gus gets a small percentage of each item bought by a customer directed from this site.
So if I put a ASIN number in a post, then buy it through the link, gus will get some money ? Or is that cheating ?
Mmmmmmm, now that is a dilemma.
Read my tagline. But see what Gus says first.
How do we put more than one Amazon recommendation in a post? I’ve tried spaces, commas (with spaces), and semicolons (with spaces). Nothing seems to work.
[quote]Mmmmmmm, now that is a dilemma.
Read my tagline. But see what Gus says first.[/quote]Well, Gus ? It seems I’m not the only one who wants to do that
I spend a lot of loot at Amazon (US). If there’s a way of sorting out a percentage going to Segue i’d be happy to do it.
Thank you to everyone for keeping this thread going. Forgive me for being so silent lately (although I’ve always been pretty quiet anyway) – I was out of town and off-line for the past couple of days.
The Amazon thingy links threads on this forum to my Amazon Associates ID. This means that I get a commission for every purchase that originated thru these links. Every quarter, a Gift Certificate “Check” is cut and sent to my brother in LA. This “check” is made out to me, and is useable for purchases made on Amazon.com
In short, your purchases made thru links here will NOT go directly to the hosting of this website.
Recommendations are limited to one per post. I agree this limitation is a drag 
You can set up links yourself within your post. Here is how.
The link behind to Amazon is simply something like this:
amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ … orumosa-20 (not a real link)
Replace 0123456789 with the ASIN# into the url below and you have a link to Amazon for that product, of which a percentage will go to the person who registered " forumosa-20" as their Amazon associate ID.
For example, say you are a Steely Dan fan and want to recommend their new album called “Everything Must Go.” First, go to Amazon, run a search for Steely Dan, then select “Everything Must Go.” Scroll down to the Product Details and you will see that this product’s ASIN number is B0000936MD. Insert that into the url noted above and you will have a link that looks like this:
amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ … orumosa-20
Not everthing on Amazon will have an ASIN. Books use ISBN.
Say you are interested in recommending a book about Human Rights and you run a search for that topic and you see a book called " Human Rights in Chinese Thought : A Cross-Cultural Inquiry." In the product details there is “ISBN: 0521007526” Put that 10-digit number into the address and you will get a working link like this:
amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ … orumosa-20
Since these links above look pretty ugly, a more elegant way to make links can done with simple BBcode:
If you do it right it can turn out looking something like this:
Steely Dan’s new album: Everything Must Go
Human Rights in Chinese Thought by Stephen C. Angle
This will work for any product on the Amazon site, not just books or CDs. They all should have ASINs. You can even link to something like a Weber gas grill.
I hope this helps.
Thanks, Tye Phoodza.
If we click on any appropriately formed Amazon link on Foromosa.com, will Gus get credit for other purchases on the same session?
In other words, let’s say someone puts up a link to Green Eggs and Ham. I’ve already got that, but I click on it anyway and then move within Amazon to purchase something else. I would expect him to still receive credit for this, but I’m asking now to make sure.
Yes, he will. However, in certain cases the referral fee rate for the product purchased after clicking on the direct link (i.e., the first product purchased at amazon.com) is higher than the rate for the other purchases during the same session.
[quote=“gus”]
The Amazon thingy links threads on this forum to my Amazon Associates ID. This means that I get a commission for every purchase that originated thru these links. Every quarter, a Gift Certificate “Check” is cut and sent to my brother in LA. This “check” is made out to me, and is useable for purchases made on Amazon.com
In short, your purchases made thru links here will NOT go directly to the hosting of this website. [/quote]
Gus, why did you choose the Amazon.com Gift Certificate when you could be paid by Direct Deposit (U.S. bank account required) or check?
Well, I didn’t exactly choose it to be the ‘exclusive’ method of donation. The Amazon thingy was incorporated for two reasons: (1) we carved out a Book forum recently and (2) uh, well, it was there – a bunch of the modifications on this forum were installed because they were easy to install(!)
I’d actually like to set up a Taiwan “Postal” account to receive transfers by those in Taiwan who do benefit from this website. Now, please remember, while all donations are very much appreciated, the financial costs of running this website are not very high.
There are other costs in addition to the hosting – for example, I’m printing name cards for the moderators to give out, and bookmarks, too. But this is pretty minimal marketing and investment.
What would be really nice is if we pooled our monies together to spring for an occassional newspaper ad (we’ve discussed this here somewhere before 
) In yesterday’s paper, I saw 3 websites that are printed in the classifieds: www.teachermania.com
Wouldn’t it be nice to occassionally have an ad in the papers, too?
Back to your original question: I originally thought that the Amazon thingy would allow Forumosa members to use THEIR OWN Amazon Associates ID, so that YOU could reap a commission (instead of me). If this feature is developed, then you’ll probably see that option appear here sometime
Are you still running this ? I want to order something from Amazon and donate to Gus at the same time, What’s the best way to do this ?
Thank you, BFM
No, this isn’t running, and I doubt it will be back. The need to upgrade phpBB is more important than keeping up with all the modifications. Every time we make a major upgrade, we need to spend the time to reinstall the modifications… We are now such a busy forum that we feel it is necessary for us to keep upgrading the system.
We would need someone who focussed on upgrading/reinstalling the modifications. We don’t have that person now (it used to be me, but my offline life prevents me from putting in the same amount of attention to the website)
[quote=“Goose Egg”]Thank you, BFM
No, this isn’t running, and I doubt it will be back. The need to upgrade phpBB is more important than keeping up with all the modifications. Every time we make a major upgrade, we need to spend the time to reinstall the modifications… We are now such a busy forum that we feel it is necessary for us to keep upgrading the system.
We would need someone who focussed on upgrading/reinstalling the modifications. We don’t have that person now (it used to be me, but my offline life prevents me from putting in the same amount of attention to the website)[/quote]I know the mod isn’t installed, I mean does what is described [url=http://tw.forumosa.com/t/new-amazon-thingy/5173/9 still work ? And would you still get the referral fee ?