Well, as it turns out version 1.3.0 was not the last release of the 1.X branch. Let me announce that Version 1.4.0 of the WordPress Amazon Associate Plugin has been released!

This release incorporates a few key features that I think will open up the plugin to an even wider audience. First this releases includes a new Cache module. The Cache Module if enabled will save Product information returned from the Amazon Product API to a local database and will serve that content from the local copy instead of doing another request. The saved data is stored by locale so it will not cause any issues with the Geo Localization logic of the plugin. To make sure the product content stays up-to-date there is a built in expiration setting so that content older than x days will be updated from the Product Advertising API.

The second major update in this release is the inclusion of Multi-Author support. We’ve added in hooks to the user profile so that every author of your website can specify their Amazon Associate Tag. If their associate information is available all links/widgets in the content of the post/page that author created will contain their associate tags. This option like all other features is optional and can be disabled on the settings page if desired.

The last major enhancement in this release is the inclusion of a Quick Links component to the post/page edit pages. This component, available in the right sidebar, allows you to insert Amazon Products or Images in 2 quick steps. The tinyMCE button can still be used but will be modified in future release to enable advanced searching and options.

In addition to the above enhancements we made some general coding changes to remove PHP Notice messages that were being produced by the plugin. That is it for now, Version 2.0 isn’t expected to be out till next year but in the mean time if you have any questions/issues please don’t hesitate to let me know!