SOAP vs REST

The best explanation or visualization of the main difference between SOAP/WS* and REST

via Geek&Poke

ISBN cross referencing

A couple of weeks ago, m³ posted a rant, on how Amazon webservices don't have a consistent ASIN accross amazon stores. He gave a book example, where I retorted in my comment on this blog, that this was not Amazon's fault, but simply the fact, that different editions of the very „same“ book simply have to have different ISBN (and Amazon relies on the ISBN for book, and I'm glad they do).

Now I just discovered a service, that cross-links the various ISBNs for what we consider the „same“ book:

OCLC Openly Informatics

xISBN

The service is quite simple – you pass in an ISBN and get a list of ISBNs that reflect related editions of this book. There's a nice FAQ ( pdf) for it.

Try this link for the latest (and hopefully last) Harry Potter.

It is not a total solution to m³'s problem, but seems to be an incredible useful service by the OCLC – the Online Computer Library Center.