I’ve been working on writing an Amazon.com scanner in Ruby on Rails which will scan particular keywords on Amazon and drop the results in a local database for later analysis.

It’s to a point where it will email me results that meet certain critieria.

I’ve added keywords for products that we use, as well as keywords from some family members who have been unwitting beta participants.  I’m almost ready to release a site to the public but wanted to ask you, my friends a couple questions as I try to figure out exactly how to launch it.

1. How much would you pay to be alerted to sales at Amazon on keywords you are interested in?
2. Would you prefer a one time fee or a monthy fee?
3. What categories and keywords interest you?
4. Would you prefer to come to the site when you needed, or would you prefer to be alerted via elctronic means?
5. Do you prefer SMS, IM, email, or text to speech over your phone for electronic alerts?
6. Any comments you wish to add that I didn’t think to ask?

Sorry for the vaugeries, but an idea to help us save money took off in my head and is growing every weekend.  Feel free to either comment or send me email (it’s on the top left of every page).  I’ll post next a sample of something I just found in my latest scan.

If you’re just interested in the final product, stay tuned for an announcement of sorts in several months.