On a related note, I find myself frequently adding something to my cart with the intention to possibly buy it later on. Why don't I use Amazon's wishlist for this? I can and do, but I find that because Amazon's cart is so reliable, sticky and frankly .. good, I can effectively use it as a wishlist.

Other sites you have no idea if something you added to your cart will be there later, but with Amazon it's almost a guarantee.

Personally, I'd rather add it to my Wishlist than to my cart. If you're publicly telling people that you're adding an item because you like it, then it would be better to add it to the Wishlist, in the hopes that one of your followers might buy it for you.

I do this as well, because the cart has the property of notifying me of price changes of items saved in the cart. I'm actually not sure if wish lists do this as well, but as I am in the cart so often (shopping online as much as I do), it's easy for me to keep an eye on items that I might be hesitant about pulling the trigger on.

Wish lists do track pricing, a feature which I wish I used more. In fact I wish I could add everything I "view" on Amazon to a list like this. I find that most consumers (including myself) don't realize how much prices fluctuate and it's really a killer savings tool if you don't have to have the product now.

What's interesting to me is that this is not a partnership between Twitter and Amazon. Amazon is simply using the API to get the hashtag results.

The way Twitter would want this to happen is by using Twitter Cards with a button to add to the cart. Of course they would be able to tax the use that way. I wouldn't be surprised if Twitter makes a move to block this functionality.

Honestly, this is great for Twitter. I can't see them blocking this. I can either advertise my product on Facebook which necessitates leaving the site in order to buy my product, or I can use Twitter Ads with #AmazonCart and see usage on a case-by-case basis all while staying within the confines of Twitter's app.

How could they block this? It's an incredibly general use case of their API.

Just block Amazon's servers.

Hahaha, yeah along with every service that runs on AWS? Yeah, don't think so.

What is the benefit here to the tweeter? I guess you could post an affiliate link and get paid for it. Otherwise you're just advertising for amazon for free, which hardly needs doing.

A lot of people tweet random amazon links on my feed, not affiliates, just normal people that buy stuff on amazon. I could see it coming in handy for them.

I personally don't see any need for this in my life right now, though I do buy a lot on Amazon.

For marketers, this could be a huge deal.

Yeah. Especially because Amazon pays to retarget people based on their cart items until they convert. So if you have goods listed on Amazon, this is a way to quickly get people that you interact with on Twitter to sign up to get more pressure on them to make the extra step from add cart -> purchase. If they can make it so that you don't even have to visit the Amazon site to give you cart reminders I could see more people than just Amazon adopting this. So you effectively get free ads on Amazon's dime if you can get customers to adopt it.

Even people like small authors could do great with this: they can have a smooth transition from talking about their book with people online to having them buy it without relying on people's keeping their short term memory together so they remember to pick up the book. Authors sell books on their book tours because people don't have a chance to forget to pick up a copy.

If you find it annoying, you can just either not follow the Amazon accounts or block them. This is a nifty little thing, and it'd be a shame if it gets screwed up.

None I believe (unless its an affiliate links). But the focus is on the person reading that tweet.

I think the OP's point is that you have to pass some value to the initial user in order for it to provide value for the person reading the tweet. My only thoughts are the following:

1. Influential person says "Hey check this book I co-authored".

2. Followers don't think twice about what the book is about or whether it's something they should buy, they'll just insta-add it to their cart. This is the most frictionless and convenient way to do so.

3. Amazon probably sees huge value in getting items into consumer's carts, since it means they can optimize for conversion. oh you're interested in <Famous person>'s newest book? you might like XYZ as well...

Maybe when you retweet someone else's tweet?

Finally, the intersection of materialism and superficiality has manifested itself as a mashup of twitter and amazon. Now, not only can you buy the things you want, you can brag about it simultaneously with minimal extra effort.

This is of course, assuming no one is going to tweet about things they actually need like: "#AmazonCart http://amazon...toiletpaper" and so on, but someone could surprise me.

That tweet wouldn't work. You have to reply to someone else's link with #AmazonCart.

I think the goal here is to benefit brand name Twitter handles. They could feasibly see their exact reach if Amazon made that data available to them.

Wow that is a new twist to privacy I din't see coming. Let the world know what you are buying and what could possibly go wrong. How long until advertisers or spammers pull in automated scans for tweets with #AmazonCart and start delivering personalized recommendation via direct message or via a mention on their tweet. Well atleast they got to narrow it down from possible customers to potential customers.

You can't DM someone that you don't follow. Twitter already exposes all the text of non-protected accounts to advertisers for their contextual ad products.

'Automated scans for tweets' are what Twitter already sells to advertisers. That's their entire ad product. Who you follow and what you talk about on your account are already used to target ads to your feed. @mentioning when you don't follow just dumps you into the non-default notifications tab, which users have to tap to 'all' to actually see.

You're totally correct that it's a privacy concern. It helps a little that Twitter doesn't have a real name policy. I am more concerned about the total lack of privacy in credit card transactions, because there is no way to opt out of that. In this case the user can at least opt out of sharing their transactions with the world. With credit cards we're all opted in to dumping our account data into a marketplace that can be easily connected to a real name.

>You can't DM someone that you don't follow. Twitter already exposes all the text of non-protected accounts to advertisers for their contextual ad products.

I agree but think about it this way. I follow Starbucks because I like them and visit them often. Now I see a link for discounted Starbucks coffee on Amazon and purchase them via twitter. Prior to that Starbucks had to make assumptions or run some machine algo on my tweets to determine: a) I am not a bot and b) My loyalty can or cannot be leveraged. However with this purchase, whenever they bring out a new flavor they could be certain with some confidence that I would make a purchase, thus messaging me personally or including me in one of their tweets.

Its not necessarily a bad thing but history has it that convenience always has its price.

What could go wrong? Honest question.

I understand the need for privacy and announcing your purcheses to the world seems both uncomfortable and a little gauche to me but spam is a separate problem that each platform will have to deal with regardless.

Well look at it from the spammer's side, you just made things easy for them, now instead of blasting out millions of spam, they can now concentrate on people who actually spend money online (and may have an impulse nature given they are shopping from twitter). I used to have random bots follow me and then include me when they tweet a spam link. Now if they were to know I purchased X, they could spam with

"@ACME I have been using X but I love this product Y more, what do you think? bit.ly/1234"

Sure most techies might not fall for it but there are plenty of others who will.

Oh wow, finally! The pain of remembering what I need to buy has truly been relieved. All that app switching, password typing. I can guarantee this innovation will save me tens--perhaps hundreds--of seconds. As an added bonus I'll also be able to share with my friends all the weird shit I'm buying on Amazon. Publicly.

Thanks Amazon, your innovative spirit truly knows no bounds.

Oh, I needed a double take to get the sarcasm :)

On a more serious note, very few people actually hit the buy button before spending a few minutes on the product detail pages to at least verify it's the stuff they want to buy. People usually spend more time to research the product, and various buying options to make sure they get a best deal.

This is probably an intern project that was somehow hyped up to get some PR for Twitter.

Could someone have already had their Amazon account linked to their Twitter (for some existing feature)? If so, I'm anxiously awaiting "I just retweeted something and Amazon shipped me this crap I didn't want with my next order".

I could foresee a marketing angle based on this worry that is cringe worthy... You tweet or retweet an Amazon product, and Amazon (with a prior agreement with the manufacturer) automatically ships the item to you to "try" it out hoping that you'll either keep it, or talk it up on social networks. I give my prediction less than 3 years until Amazon and some desperate brands give it a shot.

Very interesting merger of social and e-commerce here. I'd expect other players in the space to follow suit, or at least discover new ways to engage their clientele via social channels.

We gotta stop using the word "engage" so much.

There's a myth among social media marketers that their worth is measured by how much they "engage" users. Problem is, the word "engage" is vague enough to cover any action. Liking is engaging. Clicking is engaging. Commenting is engaging. So companies post crap on Facebook that does nothing for their bottom line, but justify it by the number of times it was liked or shared. That's how we get all this clickbait nonsense. It doesn't actually "engage" anyone, but it gets clicked.

So lets be specific. This is not "engaging clientele via social channels". This is using twitter for window shopping, not to mention free advertising. And I for one think it's a terrible idea. Twitter an unsuitable interface for shopping, and I don't want the whole world to know what I'm buying on Amazon.

Sorry to flip out on you. It just seemed like the ideal place to criticize the breezy, bs-filled lingo of the tech industry. Likewise, I'm annoyed by "other players in the space". You could have easily said "other online retailers."

If anybody has any bright ideas on how this could be used with http://2fb.me technology let me know..

I would prefer a wishlist feature instead of a the shopping cart so i can purchase the item later

I would as well. I might not be in the mood to buy the product right now, but would like to be reminded about it later.

That's interesting. I generally add whatever I would like to buy later to my cart instead of wishlist. I never visit the wishlist and by adding to cart, it reminds everytime I checkout something else.

I'm a big list guy. I like to store things in different lists depending on my interests. I also do a lot of repeat buying so it's helpful to have a bunch of lists.

Add now. Buy Now. (using Digital Currency) That would be interesting to me.

"Garbage up your interaction with real humans to make talking to our robot a little easier."

Maybe. Or this is equivalent (better?) than liking on Facebook. This feels like a "Like" but actually takes action that is valuable to the business.