Ask HN: Should I keep building my site with all the funny reviews from Amazon?

7 points·gregmuender··6 comments

Today I've been hacking away on fiftyfivegallons.com - A site to collect and display all the funny reviews from Amazon, Yelp, Airbbnb, Apple iTunes, etc. Should I keep building it? If you'd like to submit a funny review, I've got an open Google Doc going: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Mml6GaOHVWJtRHupAw7QVBmsTDl9foUTl_nqsCPRwB8/edit?usp=sharing

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I'm pulling inspiration from products like "TextsFromLastnight", "Damnyouautocorrect", and even Genious.com (formerly rapgenious.com). Imagine a complete repository of all funny reviews. People could even upvote/downvote, or submit a review with 1 click (if they have a browser extension.)

Are there any copyright issues?

Yes, interesting point. I skimmed through this: http://www.writersweekly.com/print/the_latest_from_angelahoy...

Maybe allow people to re-submit their own reviews to your site? They own the original copyright. In the meantime, you could quote an excerpt and link to the original.

Related: TrustYou is doing automated semantic analysis on travel reviews across multiple sites, then syndicating their assessment back to the vendors being reviewed, http://www.trustyou.com/press/travelers-now-read-hotel-revie...

Ya, it seems analogous to TrustYou. In doing further research, it looks like Amazon is granted a right to use the copy as they wish, which could be to let affiliates, resellers, and any other people market the product, IMHO. And isn't driving users to a website to laugh at a review a form of marketing?

Yes, your site could drive traffic to the review sites. Have you seen tvtropes?

Amazon used to have an API for reviews, but it was discontinued, http://mkcohen.com/amazon-pulls-the-plug-on-review-data

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