title: Amazon products API - Looking for basic overview and information
body: <p>After using the ebay API recently, I was expecting it to be as simple to request info from Amazon, but it seems not...</p>
  
  <p>There does not seem to be a good webpage which explains the basics. For starters, what is the service called? The old name has been dropped I think, and the acronym AWS used everywhere (but isn't that an umbrella term which includes their cloud computing and 20 other services too?).</p>
  
  <p>There is a lack of clear information about the new 'signature' process. Gathering together snippets of detail from various pages I've stumbled upon, it seems that prior to August 2009 you just needed a developer account with Amazon to make requests and get XML back. Now you have to use some fancy encryption process to create an extra number in your querystring. Does this mean Amazon data is completely out of reach for the programmer who just wants a quick and simple solution?</p>
  
  <p>There seems to be a tiny bit of information on RSS feeds, and you can get a feed of items that have been 'tagged' easily, but I can't tell if there is a way to search for titles using RSS too. Some websites seem to suggest this, but I think they are out of date now?</p>
  
  <p>If anyone can give a short summary to the current state of play I'd be very grateful. All I want to do is go from a book title in my database, and use Classic ASP to get a set of products that match from Amazon, listing cover images and prices.</p>
  
  <p>Amazon 'widgets' can display keyword search results on my pages, but I have less control over these, and they are shown to the user only - my code can't look inside them.</p>