Amazon's A9: How Well Is the Hype Justified?

An anonymous reader submits "Amazon have put up a new version of their A9 search engine. The "Beta" label was dropped, the color scheme changed, and new search types were added: Images (provided by Google), Movies (provided by IMDB), and Reference (provided by GuruNet). Several sources are already reporting this." Theopd writes with a more critical view of the hype surrounding A9's launch (note the link to battellemedia); read on below.

theodp writes "As Amazon's search service A9.com officially goes live today after being in beta for months, it's receiving rave reviews. A Business 2.0 story penned by John Battelle says A9 has raised the bar for innovation in search. Paying heed to John Battelle's statement that Google and everyone else involved in search are going to be watching A9, BusinessWeek asks: Can Amazon Go Beyond Google? And the NY Times reports that A9 is insanely powerful (story linked above), relying on a quote from - you guessed it - John Battelle. The NYT notes that Battelle is the organizer of the upcoming Web 2.0 conference, but doesn't mention that his conference's keynoters include A9 CEO Udi Manber, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Amazon Board Member John Doerr, Amazon's Wall Street Cheerleader Mary Meeker, and Amazon subsidiary Alexa's Brewster Kahle."

Comments

Re:But A9 doesn't have such a nice ring to it...

[savagedome]

Me: I A9'd for it.

I think you meant, "I Googled it on A9"

Re:I suppose it's not too bad...

[strictfoo]

search for "Books" returns: Barnes and Noble!

Re:Here's My First A9 Search...

[chendo]

Damn straight, this IS a killer feature!

No need to add in the extra "hentai" keyword in the query... A9 automatically adds it in for you!

I'm soooooooooooooooo ditching google now!

Re:Privacy policy

[Mr Guy]

I don't really know why this is bothering me so much

I'll tell you exactly why. Let me paint a picture for you. Your significant other comes into the room behind you and says, theluckyleper, it's my mother's birthday next week. Let's order her something from Amazon.com. So you pull up the page, and based on your search history, it says:

Welcome theluckyleper, (If you aren't theluckyleper, click here)

Theluckyleper, based on your searches and purchasing history, we recommend the following for you:

• Hentai: Inside the tentacle Why did we recommend this?
• DVD: The Uranus Project Why did we recommend this?
• DVD: Debbie Does Darla, Donna, and Dan Why did we recommend this?
• Book: I'm a transvestite, and I'm okay!Why did we recommend this?
• Book: Coming out to your Family: It doesn't have to be hard!Why did we recommend this?

MOD PARENT FUNNY

[theluckyleper]

OMG, I took my tinfoil hat off for one second, and you managed to read my mind?

Time to invest in that tinfoil skull plating...

Alexa search results = Niiice!

[JAgostoni]

So I decided to search for "Alexa" since the web search results were "enhanced" by Google and Alexa. Along side the search results were the image results. A naked "Alexa" appears as the first results.

This is a damn good search engine for that reason only (ha). Good thing I was at work, though...

By God, It Works!

[Mixel]

Check out the first image result for Microsoft! Seriously though, I am pleasantly surprised at how good the search engine is performing.