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April 14, 2004 11:24 AM
NEWS: A9, Amazon's Search Portal, Goes Live: Reverberations Felt in Valley
A9, Amazon's much discussed skunk works search project goes live today, so I can finally write about it. I saw it last month (caveat: unbeknownst to me until recently, Amazon targeted me as their conduit to break this news - I think they wanted it to move from the blogosphere out, as opposed the WSJ in) and had to keep the damn thing to myself, it was hard, and here's why: On first blush it's a very, very good service, and an intriguing move by Amazon. It raises a clear question: How will Google - and more broadly, the entire search-driven world - react?
My gut tells me the public face will be one of partnership: After all, A9 uses Google' search results and displays at least two paid AdWord listings per result (I've requested comment from Google, you can imagine I'm not the only one...). But I have to wonder: What business is Google in, after all? Is it still in the business of just search - as it was back when it was cutting search provisioning deals right and left, with Yahoo (already ended), AOL (arguable imperiled due to Gmail and other trends), Ask, and Amazon? Is it really still in the business of being an OEM to others, a strategy which allowed it to steal those portals' customers? Or...has it evolved, to a business where it owns a large customer base, one it must now position itself to defend?
It seems to me, Google's position in Amazon's A9 implementation is at best a step backwards. If A9 is as good as it seems to be, every customer that uses and/or switches to A9 becomes an A9 search customer, and, more likely than not, a deeper and far more loyal Amazon customer. (The service incorporates a personal search history and many other really neat tweaks, including a wicked good Toolbar.) In essence, Amazon seems to be making a play for Google's customers. Or it seems that way to me, anyway. Sure, Amazon isn't in the AdWords business. It's happy to outsource that to Google and focus on the entire US retail GDP instead...
Udi Manber, the head of A9 and one of the leading lights of the search community, is understandably evasive when asked about this subject. Google and Amazon have always been friends and partners (despite the fact that "Work at Google" is the top paid link when you search on his name on Google). But as I point out in the introduction to my Business 2.0 interview, to be posted any moment now, one-time partners can quickly become serious competitors in the Search Find Obtain market. And judging from the look of it, A9 is a very direct statement from Amazon: We are now officially in the search business, so get used to it.
One could argue that A9 is a pure commerce play, not a search portal. After all, that's what the folks at Amazon insisted when they founded the company and located it in the heart of Google/YahooLand (ie, Palo Alto). But that argument is disingenuous. First off, take a look at the A9 interface. Where's the commerce? (Answer, it's there, but it's hidden, more on that later when I post on the service itself). And second, I'd argue that you can't really be in the commerce business without having at least a strategy for owning search. The reverse also holds true. It's two ends toward the middle, and by the way, that middle ground is getting damn crowded - AOL, Yahoo, MSN, eBay, IAC, Amazon, Google...
Of course anyone who’s been in this game for a while will tell you that the internet industry is rife with cat and mouse games of cooperation turned to competition. Netscape’s outsourced its early search traffic to Yahoo, thereby ensuring Yahoo’s success. Yahoo paid the favor forward by outsourcing its search to Google, a practice it ended only last quarter. Microsoft built Overture, and crushed Looksmart. And AOL’s advertising business is on the rise again, due in large part to a deal with Google, which just announced a stunning new email service that pretty much decapitates one of AOL’s core differentiators (oh, Yahoo and MSN as well...).
What makes this particularly noteworthy is that A9 is built quite literally on top of Google. In short, Amazon has taken the best of Google, and made it, to my mind, a lot better. Sound familiar? Yup, it's what Google did to Yahoo, Yahoo to Netscape...you get the picture.
It all reminds me of a quote in a recent AP story from Google employee #1:
(The ongoing threat of competition) has helped keep Google from becoming complacent, said Craig Silverstein, the company's director of technology. "If someone should come along and do a better job than us, we know people will switch in a heartbeat."
Something tells me the hearts are beating a bit faster at Yahoo and Google HQs today. Will Google renew its deal with Amazon? Will Bezos and Schmidt put a good face on it and call this a partnership? I have no idea, but man, things are certainly getting interesting in this neck of the woods. More after I talk with folks and get a second order view of the landscape.
(I'll also have a much more complete posting on A9, including a tour of its features and a discussion of its strategic implications later tonight.)
PS- for a tour of what's cool in A9: Click here.
- Posted by John Battelle on April 14, 2004 11:24 AM
TrackBack
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference NEWS: A9, Amazon's Search Portal, Goes Live: Reverberations Felt in Valley:
» A9 Goes Live from atmaspheric | endeavors
Much respect to Amazon on this one... I did a few quick searches and A9 is very cool.
A9, Amazon's much discussed skunk works search project goes live today, so I can finally write about it. I saw it last month (caveat: unbeknownst to me until r... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 14, 2004 11:57 AM
» A9, from Amazon from Preoccupations
John Battelle rates it and thinks Google has something to measure up to now. A9: Search Inside the Bookâ„¢: In addition to web search results we present book results from Amazon.com that include Search Inside the Book. When you see [Read More]
- Tracked on April 14, 2004 11:59 AM
» A9 Launches from LockhartSteele.com
John Battelle has the word on Amazon's new search service A9, which launches today. "On first blush it's a very, very good service, and an intriguing move by Amazon. It raises a clear question: How will Google—and more broadly, the... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 14, 2004 12:00 PM
» Amazon jumping into the search business from ritilan.com
Looks like Amazon.com is getting into the battle of the search engines. Yippee there is nothing like a bunch of companies trying to do something better to bring out the best in everyone. It's cute but not Google. Link... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 14, 2004 12:18 PM
» A9, Amazon's Search Portal, Goes Live from Rantings and Ravings 2.0
Here is a review of Amazon's new search engine, A9. John Battelle's Searchblog: NEWS: A9, Amazon's Search Portal, Goes Live: Reverberations Felt in Valley One could argue that A9 is a pure commerce play, not a search portal. After all,... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 14, 2004 12:19 PM
» A9 knows what's good for you from christophe thinks out loud
Amazon has pulled the wraps off of their new search service, A9. It's built on top of Google, but is enhanced in a variety of ways. John Battelle has written a good article about it. But what is interesting about... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 14, 2004 12:56 PM
» A9, search by Amazon from Von Freud
Muita coisa nova está a surgir. Agora, a Amazon também entrou na onda do 'Search' com o seu A9, e ao que parece com uma ajuda do Google. Já se especula.... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 14, 2004 1:06 PM
» Blogs Score Big from the media drop
Think that companies don't notice the power of blogs? Think again. Jason Kottke reports that Amazon's A9 search service has launched - and with it comes a great thing. John Battelle's Searchblog was the place "chosen" to make the announcement... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 14, 2004 1:42 PM
» Nasce A9, motore di ricerca targato Amazon.com from Pandemia
Uno sguardo ai feed nel mio aggregatore mi da’ la notizia del giorno, della quale si parlera’ molto nei prossimi giorni. John Battelle rivela la nascita poche ore fa di A9, il motore di ricerca made in Amazon.com, di cui... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 14, 2004 2:03 PM
» batelle on A9 from anil dash's daily links
http://battellemedia.com/archives/000575.php... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 14, 2004 2:06 PM
» Amazon Search Engine Launched from Edward Champion's Return of the Reluctant
A9, Amazon's search engine, has gone live in primitive form. John Battelle has the scoop. The search engine corrals Google results and Amazon book results in one go. There's a toolbar that will allow the user to annotate.... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 14, 2004 2:22 PM
» Thoughts on A9 from Erik Benson
This is interesting because Amazon decided to announce this via a blog rather than a news source. Let's see how that works. If successful, I wonder whether or not this will become a more common tactic. It certainly has that... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 14, 2004 2:29 PM
» A9/Eucci from Industrie Toulouse
Amazon's A9 search engine/interface. First impressions. [Read More]
- Tracked on April 14, 2004 2:51 PM
» A9 Plugin for Mozilla Firefox from hgblog
A9 seems to be pretty cool, amazingly enough the results seem to be at least as useful as Google's.
Therefore I quickly hacked together a plugin for the search field of Mozilla Firefox. If you use this browser,
CLICK HERE TO INSTALL IT.
It's a ... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 14, 2004 3:31 PM
» A9.com is launched from Alex Moskalyuk Weblog
A9.com, Amazon's secret search project, is up and running. John Battelle has an introductory story and promises to post more tonight. In a single interface, Amazon has Web searches (outsourced to Google), book searches (Amazon-specific feature) and sea... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 14, 2004 3:38 PM
» a9.com from pensaletes
que surpresa: a9, a ferramenta de pesquisa da amazon, apareceu do nada para a blogosfera hoje. atenção: não é hoax!... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 14, 2004 3:40 PM
» A9 from pinseri
Amazon-kirjakauppa julkaisi hakukoneen nimeltään A9. Maailmahan on jo muutenkin täynnä hakukoneita, mutta tässä on pari ihan hauskaa ominaisuutta joita kannattaa ainakin testata. Hakuindeksissä on mukana myös Ama... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 14, 2004 3:41 PM
» A9 is live from cacheop
John Battelle breaks the story about A9, the newly-launched search-engine from Amazon. Amazingly the giant e-commerce company chose a blogger to spread the news out from the blogosphere to the world (and to the traditional media). Batelle had an... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 14, 2004 4:18 PM
» Amazon.com steps on Google’s toes from The Industry Standard: Guest Blog: Mark Jones
The day’s just getting underway here in Sydney, and the big Net news of the day filtering through from the US is Amazon’s new A9.com search service. It seems ex-Standard honcho John Battelle was first with the news in the... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 14, 2004 4:41 PM
» A9 Amazon’s Search Engine Goes Live from GregoryKennedy.com
A9 Amazon's much talked about search site launched today. Check the inside scoop from John Battelle: A9, Amazon's much discussed skunk works search project goes live today, so I can finally write about it. I saw it last month (caveat:... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 14, 2004 5:28 PM
» All the Rage: A9.com from The Mediaburn Radio Weblog
Amazon's A9 Search Goes Live . [Read More]
- Tracked on April 14, 2004 6:15 PM
» Amazon Search Goes Live from el gaucho
Although clearly labeled as being in the beta stage, Amazon's search tool has gone live. Several news sites have related articles, such as CNet and John Battelle's blog.... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 14, 2004 6:31 PM
» Amazon Search Goes Live from el gaucho
Although clearly labeled as being in the beta stage, Amazon's search tool has gone live. Several sites have related articles, such as CNet and John Battelle's blog.... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 14, 2004 6:34 PM
» a9 from Home is where the heart is. Apparently.
Almost Everyone has posted about amazon's new a9, however, no-one seems to have seriously commented on it's style, ui or... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 14, 2004 7:19 PM
» a9 from Home is where the heart is. Apparently.
Almost Everyone has posted about amazon's new a9, however, no-one seems to have seriously commented on it's style, ui or... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 14, 2004 7:19 PM
» Amazon A9 launches from Gen Kanai weblog
Batelle has the best insight on A9, which doesn't impress me right now, but I will not underestimate AMZN. John... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 14, 2004 7:22 PM
» A9 - new amazon search tool from Åvlokana
As James at imajes.info says, Almost Everyone has posted about amazon's new A9. Its out. Take a look. James has his thoughts on the UI, style, usability of A9 here. A9 is kool. Fair enough. But is it really that... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 14, 2004 8:36 PM
» A9 from John's Jottings
OK I lied, I do have something to write about. Jeez, post an article saying how you are tired of writing, then write a few emails and all of a sudden I'm a prolific weblogger again. What the hell. Looking through my referrer logs I noticed someone had ... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 14, 2004 8:37 PM
» A9 as tiny url, feeling lucky from FSP 1.1
If you are looking for a top ranked site, a9 is almost tinyurl and
google feeling lucky all at once. [Read More]
- Tracked on April 14, 2004 10:19 PM
» A9 from anthropomorphy
A9, the new search company and Web site from Amazon.com, went live today. It’s a nice looking site, very simple and stripped down like Google is. The search results are “enhanced by” Google, and also contain results from Amazon.com, A... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 14, 2004 10:20 PM
» Amazon A9 Search Engine Launch from SEO Book.com
A9 was lauched by Amazon as their new shopping search engine. A9 was powered by Google and enhanced by Amazon's Alexa data at it's release. A9 is to offer personalized search and Amazon may eventually break away from the current Google search technology. [Read More]
- Tracked on April 14, 2004 11:25 PM
» A9 Launches... from Core/Dump: opinion, babes and bondage...
Ok, I am loving [[A9]], the new search engine from the folks at [[Amazon]]. It is taking the best of... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 15, 2004 1:04 AM
» A9 from Raw
Company > What's New & Cool" href="http://a9.com/-/company/whatsCool.jsp">A9.com > Company > What's New and Cool Amazon's new search engine. Battelle... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 15, 2004 2:11 AM
» A9: searching by Amazon from Nowhereland
It seems I'm a late comer but this is still noteworthy: A9 is here! And what, pray, is A9? So glad you asked! A9 is Amazon's search portal. And (get this) it is powered by Google - complete with AdWords listings for search results and all! This will su... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 15, 2004 4:29 AM
» Obligatory Comments about A9 from Olivier Travers
Since Battelle is hyping it like the new slicebread and everybody is getting excited, let me throw a few links from my archives, just follow the trail: Creating a Personal Web Notebook (a post about Udi Manber's work, dated 10/17/00)... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 15, 2004 4:55 AM
» Amazon Launches A9 Search Portal from Everything Else
John Battelle announced the launch of Amazon's new A9 search portal. The A9 search engine lets you search both the Web, via Google results and Amazon's book inventory, including the Inside the Book feature. And there are more features. What [Read More]
- Tracked on April 15, 2004 5:05 AM
» Suchmaschine von Amazon from Stör-Signale
Seit gestern ist A9, die Suchmaschine von Amazon im öffentlichen Beta-Test. A9 bietet außer einer Websuche auch die Suche in Büchern. Weitere Zusatzfunktionen wie eine Suchhistorie und das Anzeigen der Fundstellen in Büchern erfordern allerdings ei... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 15, 2004 6:14 AM
» John Battelle on A9 from Deep Green Crystals
Good review, worth reading. John Battelle's Searchblog: NEWS: A9, Amazon's Search Portal, Goes Live: Reverberations Felt in Valley... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 15, 2004 7:20 AM
» More on Amazon's A9 search engine from Michael Fioritto's Weblog
Emergic's Rajesh Jain has points to the coverage of Amazon's new A9 search engine. This was originally reported by John Batelle.... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 15, 2004 7:53 AM
» Amazon enters the search business. from larry borsato
John Battelle has posted a review of Amazon's new search engine a9.com. He indicates that it is built on top of Google. There is one slight difference. There is a "Sign In" option, and after performing a search, the line... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 15, 2004 8:35 AM
» Amazon's A9 Search: Censored from Joe Grossberg
http://www.johnsjottings.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/346
http://www.chanticleer.com/archives/000029.html [Read More]
- Tracked on April 15, 2004 8:36 AM
» Asi9 from Mercurial
via John Battelle's blog, the current speculation on the new search engine from Amazon. Possible scenarios: Amazon is among the... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 15, 2004 8:55 AM
» http://poorbuthappy.com/ease/archives/002734.html from Peter Van Dijck's Guide to Ease
Doing a little ego-surfing on Amazon's new search site, I found out I was being mentioned in a book on usability. The new Amazon search site has the unique advantage of adding search in a book. I really like the... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 15, 2004 8:57 AM
» More on Amazon's A9: Weblogs Matter from Common Craft - Online Community Strategies
Gawd, the blog world is abuzz with Amazon's new search tool, A9. Seems like a great tool to me, but what I think is really cool how Amazon chose to release the news. Amazon chose John Battelle (a weblogger) to break the news: I saw it last month (cavea... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 15, 2004 9:59 AM
» A9 from Search Visibility Report
A9 rocks! The interface is clean (like Google used to be), it is adjustable, and you can save your search history, you can take notes on pages using the A9 Toolbar and the list goes on and on. Read What's... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 15, 2004 11:36 AM
» A9 from scottandrew.com
Just for the record, I had nothing to do with A9, Amazon's new search "skunkworks" as it's being called in... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 15, 2004 12:30 PM
» A9 from Delimiter
Just for the record, I had nothing to do with A9, Amazon's new search "skunkworks" as it's being called in the media. I work in the much less glamorous Amazon Associates program. (And no, I can't prevent you from receiving... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 15, 2004 12:34 PM
» Amazon A9 - Publicy to a Whole New Level from What is the Message?
John Battelle fawns all over the new A9 search portal from everybody's favourite cliche book distributor, Amazon. You can go read John's review, and the many comments that have been popping up all over the blogosphere about Amazon putting their own g... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 15, 2004 1:00 PM
» Google vs Yahoo vs MSN ... vs Amazon? from <soaprpc/>
Just when you thought the Google v/s Yahoo/MSN fight was getting hot with Google encroaching into free email services.. in comes Amazon!... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 15, 2004 1:38 PM
» If you were a global brand from Cutting Through...
that is a household name, selling purely on the internet, known as the defacto standard for online retailing, with a successful history of launching ground breaking innovative products and services, and had something new to launch. How would you do... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 15, 2004 2:13 PM
» Amazon Launches A9 from On Gaien Higashi Dori
Instead of getting even more frustrated by talking about yesterday's US policy sellout of the Palestinian people and how it will ensure that the war on terrorism is seen as the war on Arabs (and all Muslims), let's have a... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 15, 2004 7:35 PM
» Battelle's on fi-ya! from vedana.net
Today at lunch a few of us were chatting about John Battelle's SearchBlog, and we concluded that it's one of... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 15, 2004 9:58 PM
» Amazon's A9 from eclecticism
Interesting: Amazon just launched A9, a Google-based search engine, choosing to break the news via John Batelle's blog. [Read More]
- Tracked on April 15, 2004 11:27 PM
» A9 - no, non è la nuova Audi from d o t - c o m a *:o)
Leggo su IMlog che Amazon ha lanciato la beta del proprio nuovo motore di ricerca - A9. Per ora sia... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 16, 2004 12:38 AM
» If you were a global brand from Cutting Through...
that is a household name, selling purely on the internet, known as the defacto standard for online retailing, with a successful history of launching ground breaking innovative products and services, and had something new to launch. How would you do... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 16, 2004 3:47 AM
» Amazon launches its search engine from Russpundit
Amazon launches its search engine - A9. John Battelle writes about it here and here. Also read an interview with Udi Manber in Business 2.0 - it is in public area. Interesting.... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 16, 2004 5:49 AM
» I Had Visions Of A Robotic Dog from Listen to Musak
Amazon launch A9 for searching. No Doctor in sight. [Read More]
- Tracked on April 16, 2004 9:11 AM
» Amazon's A9 Search Portal Launched from SunSITE @ Tennessee
Amazon's A9 Search Portal has gone live, and is currently being discussed and critiqued on a number of bloggers — Christian Lindholm, John Battelle, Joi Ito.... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 16, 2004 10:23 AM
» Battelle on A9 from r21
I'm probably the last one in the blogosphere to link to it, but here's a great review of A9, with... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 16, 2004 3:38 PM
» links catch-up from Cup of Chicha
media -'Apprentice' manages mythic, cheesy finale / Bill Gets the Job on 'The Apprentice' / Apprentice After Party -Twins are [Read More]
- Tracked on April 16, 2004 4:33 PM
» A9. Amazon's new search engine. from Code In Zen
[Read More]
- Tracked on April 17, 2004 2:29 AM
» A9. Amazon's new search engine. from Code In Zen
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- Tracked on April 17, 2004 2:58 AM
» A9, and Counting from The Pre-Commerce Blog
Amazon’s A9 search engine got a lot of blogging attention last week (Following John Battelle's break of the news). Here are some of my thoughts on it: First, it’s a very smart move by Amazon for a number of reasons. There aren’t many ... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 17, 2004 7:11 PM
» Like it's 1999 from ukazu || motley
Recently, I found three new tools that caught my attention. Buzznet allows for photoblogs to be built quickly, easily and for free. A photoblog, as you probably guessed, is a weblog that is focused around photographic content. Users set up... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 18, 2004 1:48 PM
» A9 from Whitespace
My likes and dislikes to the new A9 brought to us by Amazon. [Read More]
- Tracked on April 19, 2004 10:05 AM
» A9: The Future of Information Access? from Saatchi
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- Tracked on April 19, 2004 3:41 PM
» More on Google (and A9!) from Haydur's World
Amazon recently released (publicly) it's A9 search engine. It's like Google merged with Amazon's personalization features: it saves your recent searches and your recent visits on it's servers, so that you can login from anywhere and retrieve your searc... [Read More]
- Tracked on April 20, 2004 3:13 PM
» A9 from kottke.org
A9, a new search service from Amazon, has launched in beta. Amazon chose to break the story through John Battelle so that, in his words, "[the news would] move from the blogosphere out, as opposed the WSJ in". Battelle's got some good thoughts on it in... [Read More]
- Tracked on June 19, 2004 12:55 PM
» A9: What Play is it? from Marketing Playbook
There have been a lot of interesting entries and contrasting opinions (see below for a summary of many of these)about this week's official launch of A9, the search engine from "an Amazon company." While I'll save my impressions of... [Read More]
- Tracked on September 16, 2004 11:14 PM
» A9: What Play is it? from Marketing Playbook
There have been a lot of interesting entries and contrasting opinions (see below for a summary of many of these)about this week's official launch of A9, the search engine from "an Amazon company." While I'll save my impressions of... [Read More]
- Tracked on September 16, 2004 11:14 PM
» Wednesday, April 14, 2004 10:58 PM from Critical Section
came out of stealth mode today. This is Amazon's search engine startup. They are built on top of Google. John Battle gives it a quick review and thumbs up. "Something tells me the hearts are beating a bit faster at Yahoo and Google HQs today." ... [Read More]
- Tracked on October 26, 2004 10:14 AM
» Amazon Search Engine Launched from Edward Champion's Return of the Reluctant
A9, Amazon's search engine, has gone live in primitive form. John Battelle has the scoop. The search engine corrals Google results and Amazon book results in one go. A toolbar allowing the user to annotate is also planned. (via Kottke)... [Read More]
- Tracked on March 18, 2005 4:52 PM
» News: Google Launches My Search History from Thoughts in and out of my mind...
News: Google Launches My Search History : " This is big news, readers know how much I like the concept of search history, pioneered by A9 and others. [Read More]
- Tracked on April 20, 2005 2:49 PM
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Let's see: it remembers searches and clickthroughs, and the toolbar allows annotation of urls. Actual searches are passed through to Google and Inside the Book, and I find it hard to imagine Amazon product search not appearing in there at some point.
So it's really kind of a search-tracking tool, with individualized record-keeping.
Is it just an attempt to slide in Amazon search channels next to Google?
I think a lot of us die-hard Googlers will still be using Google for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is the clean, no-nonsense interface and reliable results, the combination of which you just don't get from other services out there. Maybe it'd just take me a while to get used to the A9 interface, but for now and the foreseeable future, I'm sticking with Google, as I'm just not that impressed yet. (I'm feeling like an old curmudgeon, writing this! ha.)
Not that this is an A9 thing, more of an Amazon rant, but I've actually found Amazon's "search inside the book" feature to be incredibly annoying. I can no longer simply put a word or two from the title in the search bar on the main page and immediately find the results I'm looking for. I now have to slog through pages and pages of results before I find my title. There's also no advanced searching options, which makes it even more frustrating. It's infuriating at times and has kept me from buying something via Amazon just because I don't want to search for it there, and so I end up ordering it locally. So it's probably good, in a way.
In what way is it better than Google?
I don't get it. I don't particularly want to log into a search engine.
And do I read this correctly that it's just a repurposing of Google's search engine? If so, I don't predict a lot of people will switch.
BTW, good job on NPR this morning, John. Thought their three-parter had some good high-level info for lay people not familiar with the history of search, financing it, etc.
I can see it now: "People who searched for also searched for..." or "Great search: Search for and - you save 2 clicks!"
lame. take google results and throw some none-too-subtle redirects to amazon. some UI crap with the tabs and bookmarks.
Ick. They break the back button. That's a deal breaker for me.
Even accepting the premise that A9 improves on Google, that doesn't mean this is a stepping-stone to Amazon replacing Google in any way. Without Google, all of A9's search-tracking ability means zilch. And I don't see Amazon building its own Google any time soon.
Second - the search market is huge, and there's room for more than one player. Google and Amazon increasingly overlap, but that doesn't mean a partnership doesn't make sense.
The last post was supposed to read:
I can see it now: "People who searched for blah also searched for..." or "Great search: Search for blah and blah2 - you save 2 clicks!"
Seriously, I can see why Amazon would want to do this - essentially it pushes the "search Amazon content" out into the wider world (ie. search Amazon without having to come to Amazon first; we'll get you eventually.) I noticed that the "site info" button does a redirect so that the page is an Amazon-emblazoned page, complete with a listing for "People who visited this page also visited these other pages," not to mention all of the Amazon purchase tabs and doodads.
Why people would want to use it over straight Google is another matter altogether. So far, the upstart competitors to Google, a.k.a. pretenders to the throne like Teoma and others, haven't caught the public's imagination. Besides, "A9" doesn't lend itself to becoming a verb.
Don't forget, us Googlers used to be Altavista'ers before that and Lycos'ers before that ... Search technology evolves and the one giving the best results wins. It's nothing new.
Google wasn't incrementally better than Alta Vista, it blew it away.
AV was loading up on junk and had become horribly cluttered and slow. If I remember correctly it had been sold a few times. It was a mess.
Google came in, either by design or luck, and offered us something that was fast, focused and not-a-mess. And it was like magic with page-rank. Incrementally better, like Teoma is, isn't good enough to make a diff.
I've been wondering why one of Google's competitors doesn't try to take all the developers by enhancing the Google API. It's just sitting there for two years, not moving, with a set of very obvious enhancements possible. Become the OEM search engine for everyone who doesn't have a Kleiner Perkins partner on their Board of Directors. ;->
That might be enough to make Google look like chopped liver.
Interesting: It appears to have strict Safe Search turned on, with no way of turning it off (unless I'm missing something). I wonder why that is?
Christophe:
Looks like you're on target. I would also bet that
a9 is NOT licensing the full Google database.
OK, I've done more exploration into the "site info". Their description of it is pretty minimal, but it's clear that they're building the same sort of review and usage data that Amazon maintains for books and products. With a user id, one can enter a review for each website.
So what they're adding is really a review and association database for websites. Google results drive the traffic that goes into the analysis. That fits with Manber's former title as "Chief Algorithms Officer".
In the future perhaps they'll build associations between websites and products, so one can find a list of cooking websites next to "The Joy of Cooking", and vice-versa.
A9 doesn't support Google web search features. I have grown to love Google's calculator.
A9 AMAZON search engine:
type search:GREANPEACE result:Buy baby seal fur at Amazon.com, 20%off
type search:TORTURE result:Buy bondadge equipment at Amazon.com, gays 10%off, dictators 13%off
type search:POLICE 911 result:Buy album at Amazon.com Roxanne included.
A9 filters adult content to a fault. Search for the word "penthouse" and you get ZERO results. What if I'm not into porn? What if I'm into architecture?
And on the other hand, what if I really AM into porn? Typing "naked celebrities" brings me everything BUT naked celebrities. You can't really call yourself a complete search engine if you're censoring what I might find.
Especially if you're not being up front about it.
They don't have Image Search??
you are all so negative. my comments here:
http://worcester.typepad.com/pc4media/2004/04/a9_is_launched.html
Display book results next to search results? Hey, I had the same idea atfindforward.com :)
All you need to do is throw together the Google Web API and Amazon API and there you go.
Not sure I get it yet. They are pulling Alexa into it, which makes sense. I suppose if the toolbar syncs with Alexa's they are going to start generating an even more massive set of data... The sign in is prominent too, its starting to make sense from the corporate side, they are fiending for even more personal information to crunch.
But what do they offer the users? Saving your searches has some use, but its damn scary as well. Will the public at large care though? Well first they need to have a reason to use it in the first place...
on a totally unrelated note, why is my url "questionable content"?
"...Reverberations Felt in Valley" The hyperbole is thick. If I were Yahoo! or Google, I wouldn't lose any sleep over a dumbed-down, anti-porn Google-lite-with-Amazon-on-top search service. Perhaps some future Amazon personalization might make it noteworthy... I'm not holding my breath. Now a new MSN search with government-sanctioned monopolistic distribution... that might be a little worrying... but they'll screw the first few release up.
AltaVista was developed by Digital Equipment Corporation. Digital was bought by Compaq (who were clueless). AV was by far the best search engine until Google with lots of advanced features (like "near" -- which Google needs). Using Lycos... you have to be kidding.
I think it's also worth remembering Amazon's obnoxious patent behavior.
Now i gotta go home and get my new books that were delivered same-day for free by bn.com.
I found search inside the book invaluable when i built a deck on the back of my house. most info like that is still inside do it yourself books
The toolbar offers a neat feature that allows you to annotate web pages.
Most of Google's advanced syntax does work.
How about this!
Alexa (an Amazon company), shows an interesting graph for A9.com:
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?q=&url=a9.com
It would appear not only that A9.com has been in existence for almost half a year now, but that it has also received a fair bit of traffic from browsers with Alexa's plugin.
And it gets more even interesting with Wayback Machine:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/a9.com
Otis
I suspect it works both ways. Amazon bought Alexa, and it's possible that the A9 deal comes with access to the Alexa database, which would give Google a metric shit-load of neatocool data to play with.
Why wouldn't Google just strip the two actual improvements (the Diary feature is fascinating in a way, and the last-time-you-visited thing sounds like a necessary improvement) and make their own versions? Ones that are better, and streamlined?
Amazon's MS-smart. Google's evolutionary-smart. The latter always wins.
Well, at least my web site FINALLY has an ASIN (B0001AX72C). :)
How many toolbars does it take to browse? (MSN, google, alexa and now a9? plus anonymizer/steganos...)
I'm not sure the logging in aspect is appealing... if I like a site, I'll just bookmark it.
Well, at least my web site FINALLY has an ASIN (B0001AX72C). :)
How many toolbars does it take to browse? (MSN, google, alexa and now a9? plus anonymizer/steganos...)
I'm not sure the logging in aspect is appealing... if I like a site, I'll just bookmark it.
error in article: "insuring Yahoo's success"
should be: "ensuring Yahoo's success"
error: "The reverse also hold true"
correction: "The reverse also holds true"
You should proofread your articles, or if you don't feel capable of it, find yourself an editor who can.
Google is evolutionary smart? What does that mean?
Addressing various points:
HISTORY: A9's history is well-implemented from a website-design perspective, but its usefulness is limited. How often would someone want to repeat the same search?
Regarding privacy, the history is remembered in cookies... although it could also be associated with your Amazon account if you're logged in, and that is scary.
ALEXA: For those who don't know, Alexa is owned by Amazon but not many people are aware of it. It provides somewhat-useful traffic data of websites, but the data is only gathered by people using the Amazon/Alexa toolbar, which few people use.
BACK BUTTON: Evidently when you do a search with A9, it goes to one page that redirects to another. So you get two entries in your back-button dropdown menu for "A9.com Search: test search" for example. If you click the Back button, it goes back only to the page that redirects you so you can never go back by clicking the button. Extremely annoying and extremely pointless.
WEBSITE DESIGN: No one mentioned this yet, but the website design of A9 sucks. The colors are hard to read and the fonts are way too small. Google also has a somewhat annoying website but it's not nearly as bad.
Otis:
The reason that you found a9 material in Wayback is because the domain used to owned by someone else. The domain was first registered in September 1999.
The a9 domain was taken over by Amazon/a9 in late October 2003.
The previous domain owner was a person in Pennsylvania.
Prior to that it was owned by domain registration/consultant in California.
Interesting comments here, and I am sure input that the folks at A9 will take to heart, esp. the back button and porn stuff. Keep it coming. I plan to use A9 as my main engine for a while to see what it's like. I sense that it gets better over time, as it gets to know you - and as you start to create a search ecology of sorts - the space you search in the most.
I like the Google GUI much better. The color scheme is more appropriate - the yellow is a bit of a strain. Also, the sponsored links from a search result are relegated to the side of the page. This is much nicer than having some at the top of your search results.
However, A9 nicely integrates amazon.com site features with Google search technology, and adds some cool features. As a growing internet junky, the following features are of note:
www.a9/[enter search term] - good for toolbar-less quick search
ability to search google and amazon.com at the same time
site info minipages (which I hear is generated only by Alexa/Amazon toolbarrees – true? sux)
By comparing a9 book search results with amazon.com, it seems they are sorted by "featured items". I don't even know what makes something a featured item, and would much prefer to sort by "bestselling". As far as I can tell, there is no way to change this from the a9 interface.
The history and page annotation stuff (toolbar feature) are marginally useful. You can use the search engine without signing in, so that clears that issue up.
In general I think A9 is a step in the right direction. The integrated launch of "Read inside the book" and the toolbar diary / site info minipages / Alexa links are good steps towards comprehensive online publishing and web annotation respectively.
Google has character; A9 is corporatized. But A9 gives you more indepth information at your fingertips with one search.
I’ve recently converted to MyIE2 explorer due to the multi-tab function and popup avoidance. The Google toolbar is supported for MyIE2 – I don’t see anything out yet for A9.
Its hard saying bye to Google. I’d use www.a9/[search] on a computer without a search toolbar, or to get book info, web content, and additional webpage info at the same time, for a more in-depth search.
A9 is yet another tool to work around the times when Google gets banned:
http://irish.typepad.com/irisheyes/2004/04/banning_google_.html
But like other workarounds that ultimately show what Google stashes, you can continue getting porn through cache searches and by using reserved words.
CGameProgrammer, the redirect is page that breaks the back button is not worthless, it allows Amazon to fully track what search results get clicked. I suppose they could do it with Javascript or something similar, but it seems they found the redirect approach more efficient or easier to implement. Either way its pretty clear they have designed this engine to harvest as much data as possible from the users, far more then Google is collecting now...
a positive, they have set up a site specifically for those who don't want their data collected: http://generic.a9.com/
the flip to that of course is that its a tacit admission that they are collecting enough information to raise some peoples alarms.
the privacy policy has a similar duality. On one hand they assure that: "Information about our customers is an important part of our business, and we are not in the business of selling it to others"
so they probably won't sell your info outright although the phrasing is vague enough that its not a guarantee. but at the same time they carve out exceptions for "Use of Third Party Service Providers" and "Business Relationships with Third Parties We Do Not Control".
as I read it, you can't go and buy their data, but if you enter into a "business partnership" with Amazon, then hey the info is yours to explore.
Filtered search results could be a plus for A9. I know some parents that will want their kids to use a search engine that tries to eliminate porn from its index.
Google requires that its users go to the advanced search page to turn on filtering.
One last thing: Porn sites have been spamming the search engines. Filtering can lead to better search results.
commenting on the anti-adult features, I typed in "porn" to the a9 search engine, and then clicked on related books, and this was the first result:
How to Become a Porn Director: Making Amateur Adult Films
by Nick Ryder (16 January, 2002)
So apparently the adult filtering applies to everything but books.
Unlike certain people I liked the graphics. The overall look however...
Same old, same old. A linear list with ten entries, to see more you have to load another page.
For a better search experience try Kartoo. It's not a search engine, instead it uses a number of search engines to get the results. The difference lies in how the results are presented. As a map or series of maps showing sites found as folders, plus keywords scattered among the folders. When you put the pointer over a site information on it appears in the left side bar and arrows point to the relevant keywords. Put the pointer over a keyword you get arrows pointing to relevant sites.
In addition, you get a list of search terms in the left sidebar you can add to the original to narrow the search. The right sidebar has additional information.
Finally, Kartoo remembers your previous searches, in case you want to go back and check out the results again.
The three drawbacks it has are that it requires the most recent version of Flash (which shouldn't be that hard to get), it's the 'service' of a French company, and they charge you to put a Kartoo search box on your site.
That aside, it is better looking, and gives better results than any other search service I've tried yet. The maps alone raise it above Google and A9 in my estimation.
So you can keep your A9, I'm sticking with Kartoo.
More points:
A very good idea a9 implemented was the short-URL search. Type this into the address bar:
a9.com/game development
That does a search for 'game development'. Easy. The shortest way to search with Google is:
google.com/search?q=game development
Longer and more annoying to type. a9 gets away with the short URL by having all subfolders in the '~' folder. So if the URI doesn't begin with '~/' then it knows it's a search query.
Abe: The search results page can log anything they want; there's no need for a redirect page.
Kellogg: I just tried Kartoo. It's confusing and the text overlaps or spills off the screen, and it's annoying having to wait a few seconds for the search results. So, I don't like it. But I agree there may be better ways of expressing the data than a text list, but a mainstream search engine needs to use text by default.