The newest item source that has been made available for domains is provided by Wishpot.com. Using a search API, you are now able to create lists with customized products and then display them on domains in the same manner as you would for a domain currently using the Wishpot CPC Blend Item Source. The following will cover use cases, constraints, and usage instructions for this exciting new feature.

Use Cases

Currently there are 2 primary use cases that this service is intended to cover. In the future, it may cover more. Using this feature might be a good idea if:

1. The products returned from the domain's current item source is not satisfactory for the domain. The most obvious use of this service is shoring up domains with poor item counts by creating a large list of relevant products.

2. An owner wants control over the product feed. This could happen for a variety of reasons. One of the more compelling ones to consider is the idea of a domain owner mixing in a third party's product feed with their own products. This would be possible by using a wishpot list in conjuction with items from the third party's items. In effect, this can allow an owner to feature certain people's item catalogs at any given time.

Current Constraints

There are a couple of things that anyone using this service should know, as they are important to ensuring that things work properly.

-Item Order: there is currently no way to sort items. Items are displayed in the order in which they were added to a list. Lists are joined together, so you will see all of the items from one list before seeing items from another.

-Item Images: an item without any image is guaranteed to be tossed out; only items with a valid image will be shown.

-Tags: You will see a box for a list called 'tags'. Though I will explain their purpose and usage below, I mention them now to say each tag must be separated from the others with a comma.

-Domain creation: The default search term provided upon domain creation is currently unused for this service. However, it is still a required field, as all other item sources require it and Wishpot is not the default item source.

Usage

The following is the standard flow for converting a domain's item source from Wishpot CPC Blend (the default) to Wishpot.

Go to the edit page of the domain, and change the item source of the domain from its current value to Wishpot, and then save. When, this is done, the 'Category' heading will be replaced a link labeled 'Wishpot Item Source options'.

If you haven't visited the domain's wishpot list option page, it will look fairly blank. Click the 'add list' link. A form should show up.

The following is an explanation of each field:
-UserId (REQUIRED). This field is used to determine which set of lists items will be taken from. When viewing a list, this value can be found by using the url. Here is the format:

The user id is the 'XXXXX' number. This must be a number. Used by itself, all items will be pulled from a user's lists.Important Note: This value is an id for an actual user account on Wishpot. The easiest way to find this value is to get an account on Wishpot. From there, you will have a default Wish List. When viewing the list (like in the above image) the 'oid' parameter is your user id, and the 'list' parameter is your wishlist's list id.

-List id (optional). Use this to determine which specific list items are gathered from. In the above url example, this value is the 'YYYYY' number. This must be a number. When used with a user id, it will pull only items in this list.

-Tags (Optional). Items in lists can have tags applied to them. When this is done and then tags are used on the form, only items with matching tags will be pulled.

So, given the behavior described, you could create really complicated mixes of items from Wishpot. For instance, you could have an account with some lists and you want all of the items from it. You would create a list with just the userid filled in. Then, if you wanted to pull everything from two lists from another individual, you would make two lists with that person's user id and the list ids. It would look something like this:

As stated above, the only field that is expressly required is the userid field. Once you have filled in the form, you can press save. This will save the list information to the database. You can continue to add and edit lists until you are happy with your setup.

Lastly, View the domain, and check for things like products missing or displaying incorrectly.

I have performed this, and you can see the before and after using these links:
www.gameshop.net (Before)
http://hollow-dawn-47.heroku.com?name=gameshop_net (After)

You'll note that the 'Before' has a wide variety of items, and the 'After' has only Xbox 360 games. This is not necessarily a good change, but its a good example of how specific you can make your lists if you want.