Many have noted the apparent passing (at least in all but domain) of A9, a search site from Amazon that got me and a lot of others very excited when it debuted two years ago with then innovative features like roll your own search and search history. I recall the gleam in Udi Manber’s eyes as he told me about it, and I believed him when he said he had carte blanche to do whatever he wanted in search from Bezos and Amazon. But Manber is at Google now, and A9, apparently, is nearly dead. Too bad.