Remember a while back when Amazon.com introduced their web services to the world? It was a really cool thing that they opened their backend to the world for them to use. Then, within a few weeks, tons of classes and scripts popped up to start using those web services, all with varied functionality. Tried those and haven't gotten them to work? Not exactly what you're looking for? Well, look no further! DevShed just might have what you're looking for....

In their latest article, Using Amazon Web Services With PHP And SOAP (part 1) they start the series off right by showing you how to use the SOAP protocol (more on that here) to connect and send information back and forth between the Amazon.com servers. The SOAP protocol helps to keep things nice and clean, while at the same time providing a structure to your script that will allow you to expand it as much as you might need.

Our own amazon_class.php doesn't use this SOAP method - instead we opted for a XML approach (which works too, if you're more comfortable with that). There's still been some cool uses for their API, though. And, to top it all off, they're hosting a contest to see who can make the best use of their API. So, go check it out already! The prize is a $5000 Amazon.com gift certificate (that'll buy a lot of O'Reilly books!)