Slashdot Mirror
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."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
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.
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!
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!
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.
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
competition is always good!
Not against something as holy as Google!
The unofficial
Competition is good, but what if that competition is going to bias results? If I go and innocently search A9 for 'php reference' will the first result be php.net's documention, or a link to a book Amazon just so happen to sell? Its a bit of a catch-22 for Amazon. Where do they put links back to their own content without looking biased? It will be interesting to see how this one pans out, but so far (save a few oddities) Google has provided impartial search results. Google just do searches, they don't offer email, e-commerce and everything else all the other portals (MSN, Yahoo, et al) do provide.
Good luck to Amazon, be interested to see how this pans out.
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.
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? :)
Just wait for them to pantent one click searching..
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
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?
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.
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.
...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!
I think that Google could be beaten, but not by Amazon or Microsoft. The problem is that a search engine has to be perceived as neutral.
A little guy with much better technology could make headway.
Also, the likelihood of Google screwing up will increase greatly once they go public. Investors will demand more return, and management might eventually do something that blows the company reputation.
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.
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."