Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Amazon to Take on Google?

Posted by michael on from the one-click-searching dept.

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."

5 of 196 comments (clear)

  1. Didn't they up prices for loyal customers? by caluml · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I remember reading about Amazon using cookies to raise the prices for returning customers. How do we know they won't monitor searches, and use it to put up prices for things that you might be interested in?
    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
  2. They need to do better than their own site by SamTheButcher · · Score: 4, Interesting
    For instance, I used to go to CDNow.com for all of my music info needs - tracklisting, release dates, etc. I forget the exact details (I've written a previous rant about it), but I searched for either a song or album and the relevant search was 68 results in. Their engine seems to search word for word.

    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? :)

  3. Froogle? by Adam9 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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?

  4. not all cheesies and gum by poptones · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  5. They already have something of this sort by $exyNerdie · · Score: 3, Interesting


    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.