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Amazon to Take on Google?
KRck writes "Looks like Amazon is going to jump into the search engine business and try and compete directly with Google, by building a new company A9 which they hope to launch in October."
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I wish Amazon best of luck.
SCO? RedHat? How many companies really want to be the king of search engines. There can only be one Plow King.. er, Search King.. er wait, he's already sued google, too.
It's all just reminiscent of this.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
Impudent Amazon Infidels! Google alone is the master of the spanish inqusition, right shall prevail!
so will internet searches now be taxed if they cross state lines? :)
CB
free ipod and free gmail!
From the article:
Unlike Google, A9 isn't trying to develop an all-purpose search engine that indexes billions of Web pages. The startup instead is zeroing on a one of search engines' sweet spots -- e-commerce.
"Sweet spot" for advertisers... "Crap that clutters my search" to me. Google has done a pretty good job of keeping the e-commerce sites out of my listings, and as a result, I really do click on the sponsored links when they're relevant. But they've been slipping... a search on Electric Fencing returns mostly people selling the product, but adding keywords (Electric Fencing Installation) helps.
More articley goodness:
As more consumers have become comfortable with the Internet, a growing number are using search engines to review products and compare prices.
Review != Purchase. When I look up a product, I'm usually looking for complaints. Before I signed up for Netflix, I examined the complaints and decided I could live with the reported problems. I decided against GreenCine in part because subscribers report low supplies despite an excellent selection. You get the idea.
Hopefully, if Amazon focuses on the e-commerce angle, Google can focus on the information angle. I'll go to Google to find out how to install an electric fence, and perhaps I'll go to Amazon to find an electric fence supplier. But more likely, I'll click on a Google AdWords partner.
Google's biggest problem right now: Crapflooding, which will continue to be a whack-a-mole problem on any search site. When I do a search on Toothpick Bridge for my daughter's science class and see a URL of "www.hdlac.org/mom-daughter-incest.htm", I know that the spammer/scammer community has scored again.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
But I kept wondering if clicking "reply" and "submit" would infringe on Amazon's patents... but I realized that it meant two clicks, not one!
And you'll see a powered by google search spot. Amazon's gonna have a tough time gaing market share, imo.
...I know that Amazon used to "experiment" with pricing - I'd worry to much they were doing the same thing with linking. Rather than relevance to my search it'd be listed according to Amazon's fees/whims....
Do we really trust an amazon sponsored search engine when looking for "books on computers"? Do we really believe that they will give us unskewed results?
This is the core of the matter, and why google is so successful. We believe that they are unbiased, and therefore trust their results.
Incidently, this is why msn search will fail as well.
All hail the king of searches: Google.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Some say it's a good thing, competition is good, etc. I, with Microsoft in mind, prefer different markets to be dominated by different players.
It's a good thing Google already has a "I'm Feeling Lucky" button. A9 would surely patent One-Click Searching.
My religion forbids the use of sigs.
Amazon wants to be google, but ...A9 isn't trying to develop an all-purpose search engine that indexes billions of Web pages. The startup instead is zeroing on a one of search engines' sweet spots -- e-commerce.
Will Amazon give priority to Amazon pages/products when consumers search A9 for items?
Case in point: I was buying a ticket for a flight, and when I started, there were lots of available seats on a variety of days at 317 each way. By the time I had gone through the process, put in my credit card details to buy it, and hit submit, a message appeared saying "The seating information has changed, please start from the beginning again." Magically, all the seats on all the same days had jumped to 900 each way. My point? I don't know. But Amazon has played dirty before. And I don't trust them.
Anyway, I didn't book my tickets with British Airways. Some other mug will have to pay the inflated prices.
Get your own free personal location tracker
They keep telling me large parts of the Amazon are unexplored. How will they find anything?
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
1) Buy www.A9.com and all the similar domains
2) Amazon offers you money or changes the name
3) PROFIT!!!
Ave Molech Setting
Karma on slashdot is like taking a piss in the middle of the desert: No one with any sense cares and it's soon gone anyway.
Great, a commercial search engine. I wish there were a web service that could NOT show me all that crap.
competition is always good!
Not against something as holy as Google!
The unofficial
I'm all for competition and I don't have any problem with M$ trying to usurp Google(good luck you M$ twits) but, Amazon is starting to tick me off. Perhaps it is their monthly patent filings that rub me the wrong way. Deep down I fear that they will beat Google by patenting the "Search" button.
yahoo, excite and hotbot were called search engines?
And Amazon sold books, and did it well?
Then somebody said "Portals" and they became "portals".
Then somebody said "Auction" and they all followed e-bay.
Then somebody said "e-commerce" and they all started selling everything.
And books became Amazon's sideline to their patents on everything but the color of money.
And their site became a Navigational Nightmare(TM) (patent pending).
Now everybody wants to be a search engine again.
The reason Google is succesful is because it does it gives people the information they want, and stays the hell out of their way.
http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2003/TECH/internet/09/26/goog le.amazon.ap/story.search.jpg
Look closely at the OS. WHY did they use Windows 3.1?!?!?
--bhtooefr
Has anyone noticed the increasingly uninformative results Google has been returning lately?
Searching for almost any generic term on Google results in a deluge of shopping sites. And (surprise, surprise) Amazon finds its way to the top of the lists nearly everytime.
I wouldn't be surprised that since every page on Amazon prominently features a Google search field that the folks at Google have conveniently avoided trying to find a way to fairly balance its search results.
Needless to say, Google is becoming less and less useful everyday.
I just can't get enough of those product-sponsored search results. Watch out, Google!
...and other stuff through different stores, and now they want to be a search engine, too? I don't really get why these sites feel the need to be everything to everyone -- it seems to me to be a recipe for failure. Plus I don't think I'd trust a search engine that was directly connected with profiting from promoting certain brands, products, etc. I haven't used anything but Google in a long time. I've even heard journalists and a (US) government official use the expression "Googling" in interviews/press releases on NPR on numerous occassions. Google is practically ubiquitous with searching now. If I was an Amazon.com shareholder I would be very wary of this.
Not to say that a better search engine won't eventually come along, but I don't see why anyone is going to switch when the incumbent site is about as good as most people will need.
Excuse me, I have to go Amazon... er... A9... for more information, now...
Nope, sorry. Doesn't work. ^^;
My Webcomic: Asylum on 5th Street
Maybe Google can put amazon.com links to the end of the search results.
[ramble]
Well, I'm no longer fp, but I will say that Amazon taking on Google is much like MS taking on Google: plenty of blood yields plenty of bathing. Brand precedent is certainly a factor that I think Google will be strong enough to maintain. Amazon = books/music MS = bad software. Now, we all know that MS is going to pull an IE-homepage-set-to-MS-search-engine deal when their service comes out, something that Amazon won't be able to do. On the other hand, Amazon is much more in tune with consumerism on a larger, general scale. They probably know exactly what people want to know when searching for a product to buy. This'll give them an edge over Google if they concentrate solely on products. MS, well it would behoove them to start from scratch with their search algorithms. I use Google to navigate MSDN...that about sums it up. At the very least, these companies are going to pour a lot of money into these systems. How much blood letting they'll do before yielding Google-esque marketshare is anyone's guess.
[/ramble]
Maybe it's just me, but I'm pretty sure that I will not be able to count on Amazon to give me back non-biased results whenever I'll do a search. Being a -company- where profit is far more important than anything else, will they try to capitalize on it buy throwing in it's own products before someone else's?
It's probably legal, since it's Amazon's search engine, but if I'm looking for a new blender or whatever, I can bet a million to one the first couple ( if not more ) links will be geared toward amazon.com
Reminds me of the MSN search engine.
I guess it only make sense to build a decent front end to the alexa archive, they claim it's huge.
It's Windows 3.11 displayed on a Gateway 200 Crystal Scan 13" Monitor.
;) Memories.
I felt as though I owned a mainframe, the day I got that PC. Couple of nights later, I did ownZer a mainframe.
Will they be charging me state sales tax to search?
This will make a great scifi b-movie!
as everyone tries to get a1.com - a8.com,
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
Is the search-engine business of sufficient size to support 8+ players? Given the fact that the search engines of several of the players are very similar, the answer is "probably not". The market for search engines will undergo consolidation, and the main survivor will probably be Microsoft. It has an R&D budget that none of the other competitors can match.
You can be sure that Google is rapidly working towards an initial public offering (IPO) while there is still a chance for an IPO.
I know if I was paying for ad space on A9 and found a scathing review showing up right under the link to my product, I would be very pissed at Amazon and want them to take it off, because, hey, I'm paying for it. There is none of this with google...well.....except the whole Scientology deal but thats different. How will we know when Amazon isn't just giving a paid placement for the product, but is also giving false info/concealing the truth about a product?
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Wonder when Amazon will start shipping the book "Going against Google for Dummies"...
future shocked
What the hell...oh, I thought the new company was going to be called 69. Sorry misread it.
The more quality links you have the better your PageRank the higher up in the results.
If you search for the number of sites that link to google it's ~39,000. I have a feeling a few of those have a page rank above 7, that is going to put them at the top for a lot of searches.
Okay, here you go. Went to amazon.com, searched for song title "The Ocean". There might be a few, but I'm looking for the Zeppelin song. Out of 4686 results, you can only sort by alpha, A-Z or Z-A. That. Sucks. Result #2 does not have any song called "the ocean", but rather a song called "(More Like An Ocean That A) Bathtub" - I'm assuming they mean "Than" instead of "That" but whatever.
CDNow would return a list with all songs called "The Ocean", then return songs with the word "Ocean" in the title. Amazon's search engine sucks, and I think they're in way over their head on this one, but I could be wrong. I have been before.
Additionally, if they're targeting a narrower audience, then they're not going up against Google, now, are they? :)
Sounds like just about everybody wants a piece of google. Considering that all of these companies will also be making complete copies of the web for their own private cache, perhaps it is time to start hoarding disk drives since they will soon be a scarce commodity as companies start buying them up to copy the web.
Hmmm, if amazon starts copying everything google has, and yahoo copies amazon, and google copies MS, and MS copies yahoo... Yikes!
I've noticed more activity from their spider (useragent ia_archiver) than I have from google on my domains recently; so I tend to believe they have a more up-to-date and possibly larger index.
Just wait for them to pantent one click searching..
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
I, for one, don't see need for our new Amazoogle overlords.
Amazon is known (at least to me) for tricks like charging frequent customers more.
uhhh... hmmm. [tap-tap] Pardon me sir, but are you aware that taking doggie downers actually reduces your chance of getting fp? Folks, talk to your geeks. Get the word out.
...and this is your fp on drugs:
This is your fp:
Yeah FP! I fsckin roxx0r!
Yeah FP! I fsckin roxx0r!
and they'll also try to patent 1-Click searching.
Dipshit.
Google has done a pretty good job of keeping the e-commerce sites out of my listings,
Recently, I don't think that's true anymore. At least from my experience. If you search for anything remotely similar to a product or service, you may run into special spam link farms for the search terms you looked for in the top ten of the Google results. Sure, you can report these with the 'Dissatisfied?' link at the bottom, but that's tedious, probably not too many people use that, because it doesn't seem to improve the system much. Over all, Google isn't working as well as it used to. Simply because some SEO people have figured how to manipulate it. It's sad, but as with spam, the fight has to continue.
No, they didn't do that, they randomly chose prices for some items a while ago.(it was like a multiple choice, you could get price A, B, or C) the cookies, just made sure that once you got A, you still got A, they were testing the market. After it all blew through they charged everyone the lowest price for the item.
What about Froogle?
Taken from this page:
Froogle is a new service from Google that makes it easy to find information about products for sale online. By focusing entirely on product search, Froogle applies the power of Google's search technology to a very specific task: locating stores that sell the item you want to find and pointing you directly to the place where you can make a purchase.
I've only tried it a few times awhile back, and it seems to work pretty well. Will this compete with A9?
Patent this idea! Fast!
I admit google is my first pick as well, but don't dismiss ANY latecomers at this point. It's not just the spoofers and spammers who have weasled their way in - I've done many searches where the first several pages were basically useless ecommerce sites and even done searches where no useful information could be found there at all. Google is a great search engine, but it's nothing near the greatness it had as little as a year ago. Give it another year or two and someone is sure to come up with something better - even if it's google itself that is finally forced to do it.
Froogle, Froogle.google.com does NOT compete with Amazon. It tends to put Amazon out of business. Froogle is the best way to find the price and vendor of anything you want to buy. Google makes no money from showing the vendors and prices, only from the ads on the right side.
You can't overtake Google at this point. It's too late. Google has been the undisputed king of search for over two years now, and it's simply too "big" to be overtaken by Microsoft's or Amazon's attempts. The only thing that Google could possibly do to screw up their huge lead in marketshare is to do something incredibly stupid - much like what we need Microsoft to do before it loses the majority of the market (and, let's face it, DRM for Microsoft just might be the thing that kills it).
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
Google is already a part of the nation's everyday vocabulary. We "google" things when we want to find them. Almost every time internet searching is alluded to in a news story, you'll see "use a search engine, such as Google.com" soon after.
No business is bulletproof, but Google right now is one of the strongest internet names. People like Google because there's only as much whiz-bang as you need, and it's as effective as internet searching as been for the last few years. The main page weighs in, IIRC, at under 13K of bandwidth. Far quicker and less obtrusive than MSN or Amazon. Even on a dial-up connection it's almost instantaneous. You don't get any pop-ups on Google, and for those poor souls unfortunate enough to still use IE, Google even offers a tool that will stop pop-ups. The tools that they offer are useful and unobtrusive. They don't take over or alter your sysem, such as pretty much anything from Microsoft. (And I doubt Google DRM Software is going to be among next year's offered downloads. Unlike Windows Media Player...)
And Google has street smarts that you can't get from any boardroom. For example, news.google.com was a weekend project that a couple of employees threw together. And it got a lot of competitors' attention when they saw just how good a job they did. They're always adapting. I've seen many quotes from discussions long past show up again on message boards, and they're pulled from the Google Groups services.
While Google may not be a utopia, it's got what it needs to stand up to the MS and Amazon assault. A strong base, a smart and adaptable workforce, and great public recognition. The market is adapting to Google, not the other way around. Considering they don't like to sit on their past achievements too much, I think they'll hold up fine.
The problem here is that when people search the net for "Britney Spears", they're not looking to buy her CDs - but that's will be what they get with Amahoo!!!
Amazon is not building a search engine like that which most people are familiar at Google. Amazon wants to build a search engine specifically to sell products. So, if you're interested in the ins and outs of rebuilding a '57 Chevy or tracking down some problem with some old Sun SPARC Station you bought on eBay, forget it. It's just going to be a mechanism to point people at Amazon affiliates.
What does that button do again? I remember seeing this in a 15 minute presentation somewhere, and it sounded useful (something about customizing Google IIRC) but I've never used it. Anyone an expert on Google here?
I'm not sure how you got that link before, but the search you linked to is now pretty much all wooden bridges.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I will wait and see. If you *have* to have a dominant search engine, Google is not such a bad one to have, the adverts (sponsered links) are intelligently placed, and not too intrusive. God, just think we could have Micro$oft as the #1 search engine.. Shudder..
So, I, for one, welcome Google, our current search-engine overlords..
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
Are losers.
...it can be useful, once in a while.
Unlike Google, A9 isn't trying to develop an all-purpose search engine that indexes billions of Web pages. The startup instead is zeroing on a one of search engines' sweet spots -- e-commerce.
Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!
But of course if you view the upper right corner of the article page..."Enhanced by Google". Hah!
30% off web hosting. Coupon code "SLASHDOT".
Amazon already bought an e-commerce search company for over $100 Million.
Feels like a dup from '98. :-)
It's like the story about the frog and the scorpion. Microsoft can't compete with Google because they just can't allow themselves to give honest results on searches including words like "Linux". This renders their search engine useless, since there is an alternative (Google) that gives honest results. Same with Amazon. It's against their nature. They just can't resist the temptation to give results in favor of the highest bidder, even if it means they can compete with Google.
I mean, realistically, Froogle.com aside, Google can really search very simple static content. Put a CGI form on your website and Google will stop there. Put anything on your website that ties into a complex request and Google won't touch it.
Therefore, I don't think that the spin "A9 is going to compete with Google - the leader in this space" makes much sense, since Google is (yet) not the leader in this space - it's the leader in the static page/document search space. Seem like two different things.
Oh man, you got -1 redundant by 60 seconds. Sucks
What Amazon's doing with A9 is pretty obvious - they'll let Google invest in the overhead to index billions of pages that have little to no commercial potential, in the quest to produce "complete" listings.
:-)
In the meantime, A9 will index a fraction of that content, focused tightly on e-commerce that will have huge revenue potential, and skim the cream from the search paradigm.
Sorta like doctors who specialize in "diseases of the rich".
http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2003/TECH/internet/09/26/goog le.amazon.ap/story.search.jpg
A bit offtopic but check out that image.. Isn't that a windows 3.11 running on a blower 15" monitor from back in the days? cnn should update its art a bit to a 19" tft running KDE 3.2 alpha (ok maybe emacs IS better but...)
Of those to whom much is given, much is required.
This will mean twice as much work for KaZaA, Church of Scientology, et. al. Now they'll have to send twice as many take down notices over things they don't like.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Recently, I wanted to find out more information about valve guides. It's an engine part, for those who don't know. I only know because one of mine is "dropped", and the friendly mechanic was too busy to let me know the full ramifications.
Anyhow, I search on my car make and valve guides. Every page belongs to a car part's web site. And Every page immediately redirects to the front page, where searching for valve guides finds jack shit. Great.
Meanwhile, googling for my resume (I've submitted it to them months ago) or home page find nothing.
Google is king, but a lot of people know how to game the system.
Google hasn't worked well for over 6 months now. Too many commercial operations have figured out how to get good rankings. Previously the top ten were generally what you were looking for, these days it's all orice comparisons and consumer product reviews.
Amazon is not looking to compete with *google* they're looking to compete with *froogle*, google's product search engine. In both A9 and Froogle, companies can set up data feeds that update the product/price database.
Amazon is *not* trying to index the web.
But the sould still burns.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
With A9 they seems to be more competing with Audi thant with Google :)
"The startup instead is zeroing on a one of search engines' sweet spots -- e-commerce.
As more consumers have become comfortable with the Internet, a growing number are using search engines to review products and compare prices."
Why not just use froogle.google.com? It's excellent for comparing prices if you know the model of what you're looking for.
Froogle.google.com already does this and has been working for well over a year. Once again Google is ahead of the curve.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
This is exactly what the article is saying. It will be more akin to competing with Google's yet unreleased service, Froogle. There's not some almight, generic Google-killer in the works (at least not yet). Amazon is strictly interested in prodcuts.
So I don't see how this threatens the main search biz of the almight G.
Sounds like fun -- I mean, Amazon holds the crown in recommendations ... I can see the features now:
"Customers who searched for 'Asian Porn' also searched for: Azn N0rp, Hot Asian Sluts, Azn Porn"
"When searching for 'Barnes and Nobles': Did you mean: Amazon.com?"
I think they're a little late for the "one click searching" patent, however.
(Score:-1, Wrong)
The other day I searched Amzazon's website for the PC Infrared (IrDa) adapter and they showed a section called "Sponsored Links" on their website.
Here are the details of Amazon's Sponsored Links
Copy and paste of the text:
SPONSORED LINKS
Sponsored Links are advertisements that Amazon.com provides to you. We receive Sponsored Links from Google's AdWords service. When you click on a Sponsored Link, we get revenue. The selection of Sponsored Links that are displayed is based on keywords. For example, if you search for "Bruce Springsteen" or view pages about Bruce Springsteen, the Sponsored Links may point to sites that sell tickets to his concerts or provide information about him. Sponsored Links are always clearly labeled.
Generating additional revenue from Sponsored Links allows us to offer lower prices to you--something we are dedicated to doing every way we can.
No, actually google is run by Jews. Check out their employee list. That's why I use alltheweb.com instead.
Will they sell Segways too?
Interesting that amazon would launch a search engine when amazon.com dosen't even have any sort of advanced or power search.
Google does e-commerce searches.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
All of the post dot-com survivors still seem to be fixated on the same, flawed concept that got most of the web sites in trouble to begin with. It's *not* about doing anything and everything to maximize your "eyeballs" viewing your site.
It's *really* about focusing intensely on one particular service or offering that a decent-sized group of users think is useful.
If you're going to sell books, be the biggest, best-priced and most convenient bookseller on the net - but DON'T try to be a patent-monger, or an auction mega-site, or a toy store, or anything else unrelated!
As you said, Google is so highly regarded because it was always designed, from day one, to be a search engine - and to do the best possible job of indexing pages. They've added a lot of features - but they're all related to their core functionality (such as the ability to calculate math equations that are entered in the search field, or the ability to do phone number lookups). You use their site when you seek answers to something, and it tries to provide those answers (whether by directly giving you results, or pointing you to sites that have the information you seek).
eBay has, in my opinion, also been the only truly successful online auction site because they've kept their focus on that one area without straying. Everyone who wants to "be the next eBay" or your "eBay alternative" (aka. Yahoo auctions) can't quite penetrate that market, because they've all tried it as a side offering. Folks think "Hmm... Why use this auction link off this e-commerce or search engine site, when I can use eBay, that's completely dedicated to auctions? More people will see my listings that way, and there's likely to be more of the stuff I'm looking to buy."
Personally, I have to wonder if Amazon is playing a shell game to snooker investors. Here's how it would work, Mr. Bezos determines that his current business can never make a profit. How will he ever explain that to the investors (and let him offload some shares?) As long as he takes whatever income he has and invests it into expanding his business into new areas, investors are not bothered by losses. Given that their earnings/share is still negative $.23, I would guess that's their game.
;^o
Alternately, they don't want to ever post a profit 'cause then market expectations are that once they start making a profit they should always make a profit and it makes capital investment all that much more difficult. At least that was what management at Metricom (the Ricochet folks) claimed was their strategy, before they went under.
I think this is a really dumb move on Amazon's part. It seems as irresponsible as the pre-bubble-burst days. What's next, Amazon Linux? Stick to books and "One-Click shopping" or whatever it is...
Must-not-watch TV!
I was just about to start on a rant about how paid listing sites have ruined Google for all geek hardware searches, and how this A9 will surely be the same thing, when I discovered upon testing an example (thank heavens for testing!) that the problem seems to have _gone_away_now_.
I'm talking about the situation where you search for, say, "Canon S400" and all you get is a load of duplicated hits from paid listing sites like DealTime, DealsOnTheWeb, Kelkoo and so on (all claiming, ironically enough, to show the best prices for said item when in fact they are all near the top end of the scale).
I can hardly believe it but the problem seems to have more or less disappeared at some point over the last few days. I'm getting mainly genuine and relevant hits, liking direct to the retailer!
Is this just me - am I just getting lucky tonight or has anybody else noticed an improvement in the last few days?
but if anyone could do this, amazon certainly would be my top pick for succeeding at something like this, and i would cheer them on all the way
hooray! it's a sex wiki
I think it's important to notice the respectible restraint that google showed in the interview. They could've pimped out froogle while it's still in beta, but instead they let Amazon get their limelight for a moment.
But the thing is, once Froogle goes live and is advertised in a big way, expect this A9 stuff to be pushed under the rug...
Just do it!
A few days ago, I was looking to kill off a $50 Amazon promo certificate. I decided to buy a new multi-tool, and searched for "leatherman wave". The listings included two adwords... linking to www.all-leatherman-4-less.com and stagg-tools.com. Amazon probably gets money per link, or maybe an affiliate commission, so even if they don't make the sale they win.. they get money, and don't have to worry about inventory or shipping or anything.
The other interesting thing is right now those adwords come from a little search engine called, well, Google. So Amazon basically figures they can do the same thing they are doing now in regards to getting paid when competitiors get paid, but they won't have to go thru the google middlemen to do it.
I have blog like everyone else
Well OF COURSE Amazon has to come out and try to build a search engine to compete with Google.
They're a corporation, after all. This was to be expected.
See, the Corporate Life Cycle has very few stages:
Employees with ideas get together and file paperwork. Corporation comes kicking and screaming from the womb of paper declaring that it is a legal entity, quite often having legal residence in the state of Deleware.
Most Corporations don't evet get past this stage, being a favorite tasty fat prey of The Government, Lawyers, Bigger Corporations, and Software Salesmen. These cute little guys are eaten up by the big bad world and digested. Their employees are either excreted onto the ground, ready to start the proces anew, or absorbed and become part of the Predator.
Those that live get to a happy place where they're scraping by, but still and often these adolescents even play together.
But like all adolescents, they become embittered. Maybe that retail chain with the cute ass started dating the Beefy Sports Franchise with the rich founders, who konws? But it almost always happens. The corporation gets bigger and suddenly develops an attitude problem.
People who could previously talk honestly with each other so things get done are now sending notes about each other to the new secretary with the big titties and then leaking to the rest of the company the other guy is trying to get into her pants - he doesnt deserve a raise! People get fired over giving honest opinions that could get our now more worldly corporation sued, and goddamnit its got hundreds of little shareholder mouths to feed.
"Waitaminute," the Corporation realises, "I'm not making ALL THE MONEY!
GODDAMNIT!"
"But Corporation, you are doing fine right now. You make money and pey people and maybe svsn save a lit-"
"SHUT UP! Fuck You! You're Fired!
MUST.
HAVE.
ALL.
THE.
MONEY!
NO OTHER CORPORATION CAN EXIST!
Can I buy those guys? What? NO? You're fired, too!
I dont fucking care who we have to bribe, fuck, or fuck over! I want THEIR BUSINESS!
WAAAAAAH! I WANT ALL THE MONEY!!!!! WAAAAAAH!!!!"
----
Okay, so I think corporations suck, but this is what they do.
None of us should be surprised that an online retailer has suddenly decided that a mostly unrelated business is mow a mortal enemy to be competed with.
fuckers. I hope this causes them to fold in half.
s'wut i sed.
VERISIGN!@!#
I'm assuming that "A9" gets its name the same way that "i19n" does.
Amazon.com has 9 characters after the A, so you can replace them with the assumed 9 characters in the compressed form of just 9 since it is a well known name to us.
If that is the case, are they going to have an "a9.com" site? If so, then that is like saying "ATM Machine" - and I hate when people do that.
This should be referred to the Department of Redundancies Department.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
Google better patent the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button real quick....
You forgot the part where you assume the slashdot community is familiar with his work and that we will miss him.
Google has spent years developing its PageRank technology that they call the "heart of our software". Given that Google has patented PageRank, it is hard to imagine how Amazon will be able to produce anything that will be of a competitive nature to Google.
Froogle hasn't been officially released (notice the little "Beta" in the corner of the logo), but I think that it will be a far more comprehensive online shopping service than anything that Amazon could use.
It seems likely to me that Google could use its place in the "Search Engine" market to expand into the "Search Engine for Specific Products/Services" market. It seems highly unlikely that Amazon will be able to use its place as an Online Retailer to springboard themselves into the search engine market.
It may seem like there will be a lot of competition in the search engine sector, but there is one new emerging market which stands to grow as a result of this new competition from Amazon.
The keyword marketing and advertising management services. Those services which offer to optimize or increase the return on investment for companies who have large sets or portfolios of keywords stand to benefit from this potential new source of revenue. A new search company means keyword advertising management agencies can increase the scope of their services as well as the cost for them.
Why? That's what All Music Guide is for. AMG your friend.
A9, or 37x52mm as it's also known.
Darl McBride to start a search engine called Foolscap.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Google seems to be turning up lots of mailing lists in the search results nowadays.
For web search I'd rather more the formalized documents to be ranked higher (FAQs HOWTOs etc). If I wanted email/other messages I'd rather use Google Groups for that.
Maybe they hadn't rebuilt their index yet in the past few weeks?