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The API is all the rage these days, and it seems this trend is not only expanding in the open source realm, but the corporate megalith arena as well.
While shopping on Target.com tonight, I noticed that during checkout users are given the option of either completing their transaction with their target.com account, or their amazon.com account. Seriously: if you buy something from Target online, you can toss in your amazon.com login and password, and you’ll have access to your existing amazon shipping addresses and billing information!
This is genius.
I don’t think I’m alone when I say that one of the barriers to my purchasing goods from online retailers is the often-times arduous process of signing up for yet another account name as well as entering billing and shipping information. So, to begin checking out from a site I’ve never used before and being given the opportunity to simply throw in my big gun, my king of all logins, the one online shopping identity to rule them all, how could I resist?
The process functioned just as one might expect: Target.com pulled over my billing and shipping information automatically, and I was all set: my total time spent in completing my order has to have been cut in half, if it wasn’t reduced even more than that. Granted that it’s sort of scary to think of Amazon as becoming even more popular and therein powerful, but when they make online commerce this easy and rewarding, there just isn’t anything to complain about anymore.
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I was not aware of this new feature, very cool…and a little scary. You have to hope that all proper measures were taken in securing this slick new transfer of our purchasing information. How long till we see the first big theft of personal information by a hacker who used the API of one of these companies?
They are the same company, they have been doing this since before I left for Taiwan, so almost two years. Before when you shopped on Amazon, you had the option to pick up your goods at Target, some items were flagged with an “Available at Target” option. I noticed this while shopping for headphones before I left, and again when trying to get a PSP. Toys’R'Us is also involved. I think they are either all the same company or have some sort of satanic pact.
I gotta hope for satanic pact, just on principal!
I guess Amazon and ToysRus are not bosom buddies anymore:
“We are at a point in the relationship with Amazon where we have no trust whatsoever in dealing with this organization,”
Personally, I am more concerned about the Tunnel project