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Amazon's Search Engine Goes Live

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the everyone-is-getting-into-the-game dept.

fjordboy writes "John Battelle has posted a discussion and review of Amazon's new search engine: a9.com. From the article:"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." "

12 of 402 comments (clear)

  1. Ads by panxerox · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hmm Google - a search engine that displays ads, Amazon - an ad that displays searches, oh yeah that's gonna rock.

    --
    "It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
    1. Re:Ads by plumpy · · Score: 5, Funny

      Google built on top of Yahoo? What? They both use two different ways to search the internet.

      You're being too interpretive with it. The poster clearly said it was quite literally on top. This obviously means that the Amazon servers are directly above the Google servers, which are directly above the Yahoo servers, which are directly above the Netscape servers.

      Oh, unless it's yet another misuse of the word "literally" to mean "metaphorically". I guess we'll never know.

  2. Tinfoil Hat Not Required by RobertB-DC · · Score: 5, Funny

    From the 7 Reasons to Use A9.com:

    Search History: All your searches at A9.com are stored on our servers and shown to you at any time from any computer you use. Clicking on a link performs the search again. You can hide the window at any time and a password will be required to open it again. You can edit your history, for example, to hide an entry.

    Click History: If any of the web search results include a site that you have seen before, it's marked on the result. We even tell you the last time you visited that site.

    You don't have to be among the tin-foil hat crowd to have a low regard for this "feature". There are just some searches that you *don't* want to remember.

    It's not a stretch to imagine a situation like this:

    Boss: "Google me some info on our competitors."

    Lackey: "Check out this new A9.com search!"

    Boss: "What's that link there? I didn't know you were interested in goats... [Click] Damn! You're fired!"

    --
    Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
    1. Re:Tinfoil Hat Not Required by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Funny
      Boss: "What's that link there? I didn't know you were interested in goats... [Click] Damn! You're fired!"

      As if you couldn't find history in Mozilla...

      Could be worse, could be the boss turns to you and winks.

      what's their plan... track most popular searches, keep a cookie full of it, suggest these fine things the next time you go to Amazon.com... could even help them anticipate what to carry [We need to carry ... goats?] as if their marketing data isn't already legion...

      --

      A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
    2. Re:Tinfoil Hat Not Required by zx2c4 · · Score: 4, Funny

      I can see amazon integrating this into their already awful shopping service -- "you searched for goats, would you like to buy..." Although google uses this information, there is no annoying representation of it.

      --
      ZX2C4
  3. CLICK BELOW by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Everyone should run this search just to break in their search engine.

  4. Amazon has taken the best of Google... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    and patented it. Litigation begins tomorrow.

  5. lazy name selection by wwest4 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Does anyone know the origin of the name? It seems like they just started enumerating domain name strings starting with null until they found one that wasn't taken...

    a1.com? no, steak sauce.
    a2.com? nope. taken.
    a3.com? porn site. ...
    a9.com? unregistered. dude, we've done it!

  6. Porn by PhatKat · · Score: 5, Funny

    Here's proof of how bad this search engine is. I searched for 'porn' and didn't find any! I'm on the 5th page of search results and still nothing. what kind of search engine can't find porn on the internet?

  7. In case of slashdotting... by PollGuy · · Score: 5, Funny

    here's Google's (rather curious) cache

    Show me an A9 cache of Google's cache and we'll talk...

  8. Re:1 reason not to use a9.com by winkydink · · Score: 5, Funny
    I searched for Blowjob and got 0 results WTF?

    And that, ladies and gentlemen is the executive summary for The Life Of A Slashdotter.

    :)

    --

    "I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey

  9. Re:People who searched for "warez" also read... by Omestes · · Score: 5, Funny

    Same thing with "crackz" and "serialz"...
    But oddly it works for "petz" and "catz"...
    Pirating animals must be okay for them.

    --
    A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey