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Amazon's A9.com Search Engine Goes Live

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the competition-benefits-everyone dept.

scapermoya writes "Today was the official launch day of Amazon's A9.com search engine, which has been in public beta for some time now. It uses results from Google, and adds some personalized features, like bookmarks and search history. Its Java-heavy inteface reminds me of Gmail, which is nice. It doesn't seem like it was designed to supplant Google, but rather to flesh out some things that a certain demographic of people might like."

12 of 196 comments (clear)

  1. Font? by modifried · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Wow. Do some of the links look horrible on it for anyone else using Firefox 1.0PR? The font is so small that pieces of the letters are actually missing.

  2. Two problems... by neiffer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I see two problems with this. First, let's face it, since they are searching text of Amazon books, it's an ad site. Sure, it's useful, but it's an ad site. Second, I tested it by typing "Helena" (my home town, the state seat of Montana) and there isn't a single picture of Helena, Montana among the first page but rather pages of women in swimsuits. I don't think adding images without asking for them adds much to searching, that's why I like Google as I can pick the content.

    1. Re:Two problems... by psyco484 · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Because I hadn't used it before and didn't need to search for anything, I just typed in asdf. The results contain a weird picture that may or maynot be 'safe for work.' They should think about incorporating google's safesearch if they want to include images with every result. Definitely can't use this search engine from anywhere but home if there's a chance a pair of tits are going to flash on the screen when I'm searching for something from the library or my workstation...

      Other than that it seems to work as expected (I'm not noticing the problems other firefox users are complaining about?), maybe in another few months.

    2. Re:Two problems... by ClippyHater · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Guess it depends on what's useful to you. I know a bunch of folk who despise google. They don't want to "learn" how to use an efficient search engine. They want buttons to do the majority of things they're interested in. They want a search history so that if they're repeatedly looking for things, they can find it.

      What's interesting to me is the meta data they have on sites. For instance, I typed a search on Gentoo, and, of course, the Gentoo home page was first on the list. But then I saw a "Site Info" button next to the link. Clicked on it, and was taken to an Amazon (?!) page that told me semi-interesting facts about the site. For me, very cool!

      With the A9 toolbar, the site becomes even more useful to those folk it's targeting. The ability to take notes on sites seems like it could have interesting possibilities.

      Anyway, I think the sites pretty useful. Since I have broadband, the "bloat" doesn't bug me one bit. I also compile modules into my kernel :)

  3. as someone said last time... by fresh27 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...A9 is pretty bloated. It looks nice, but its a little too much for me compared to the slick and minimal style that Google has. A search for 'America' yields a 52.64 KB result page in A9, while that same search yields a 4.36KB page in Google. Size isn't necessarily a problem for me, but I think A9 is trying to pack too much stuff into what should be a simple process. If I want to find movies, I'll go to IMDB, if I want to find books I'll go to Amazon. A9 complicates it rather than simplifying things.

    --
    http://ipod.fresh27.net/
    1. Re:as someone said last time... by Finuvir · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It simplifies it for people who can't or don't want to remember all of the various sites you or I would use. A single text box that can find anything is easier than a list of specially-tuned searches.

      --
      Why is anything anything?
  4. CNET- by thewldisntenuff · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Had a blurb on this....Apparently it brings porn to your searches.....

    For example, if you search "Frontpage SEO", pr0n shows up in the image toolbar....I've seen it, but haven't played around with it much.....

    Link to the story
    http://news.com.com/2061-1032-5371766.html?tag=xtr a.ml/

    --
    My MythTV HowTo
    1. Re:CNET- by gl4ss · · Score: 2, Interesting

      well.. just try to search for "girls" :)

      what's different in this vs. google is that when you keep all the bars on you're quite likely to see the porno without even trying to get to see it.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  5. I would tend to disagree... by GillBates0 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Its Java-heavy inteface reminds me of Gmail, which is nice.

    with that statement. I don't entirely agree with using "heavy" JavaScript/etc for simple webpage based applications like search engines, which should be as lightweight and minimalistic as much as possible, allowing me to access results without having to rely on helper applications or specific interfaces

    I should be able to use lynx or other interfaces (Google API) to access results without undue overhead, if I so desire.

    It's sad lynx comes up with the following when pointed to http://www.a9.com:

    Alert!: Unable to connect to remote host.
    lynx: Can't access startfile http://www.a9.com/

    --
    An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
  6. Re:Size Matters Folks! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I hate having google set as the home page as it steals focus from the address bar and more often then not I know where I want to go when opening my browser.

  7. Not that interesting by Eriky · · Score: 2, Interesting

    They just combine a few searches, like image searches and web searches. The movie search function just searches IMDB, which I can do perfectly well without a9 by just going to imdb.com. I don't need a search history either, my google toolbar takes care of that. (or the saved form info on any other browser). In my eyes, this is just an attempt to increase amazon sales, by getting some free advertising from the launch of this search service and hopefully (for them) getting some people who will actually keep using A9 though is not that great.

  8. Re:search for "amazon" by toddestan · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Typing in "search engine" doesn't even yield A9 in the first page of results. Actually, after playing around in A9 some, I kind of like it. Sure, it's a bit more bloated than Google - but with 2Mbit DSL I don't notice it, and the extra bloat is actually useful.