A9 Search Engine Launches Yellow Pages

vmalik writes "The A9 search engine has launched a Yellow Pages service, and the listings in major cities include photographs of the storefronts. The site also contains information on how they did it. It seems to be pretty good with lots of store images and driving information from MapQuest."

Comments

Current?

[KontinMonet]

Cool idea, and keeping this up-to-date will be a nice little earner for someone. Presumably, photographed stores will tell A9 when things have changed... or will there be a two year delay?

Re:Current?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just updated information for the company that I work for. What is really odd is it lets ANYBODY change ANYTHING. In something obscure enough you could probably enter information about your competitor which would make anyone informed know that they suck. So, that's sort of a minus. I don't know if they're going to check the info I updated or what.

Their interface did not give me a chance to upload a picture. You can only "share a picture" if you're a customer. Being I'm an Amazon customer, I reviewed the business as 5 stars but will not shill it out by writing a review.

nobody uses A9

[Anonymous Coward]

A9 is like Google and Claria combined, with webbugs, click tracking and paid inserts all tied to your Amazon cookie which is tied to your credit card
it only exists to maximise Amazon and their partners (those who pay the most) revenue

at work we classify A9 as a "severe privacy threat" and therefore it is blocked at the firewall

Re:nobody uses A9

[cgenman]

it only exists to maximise Amazon and their partners (those who pay the most) revenue.

So... how is this different from most businesses? Not to be a free-market fundie or anything, but at least one of the motivations for all businesses is to earn revenue. A9 has decided to earn revenue for it's owners by providing better features to and tighter tracking of it's customers. However, I fail to see how what A9 is doing is different than the paid inserts or supercookie that Google uses, or for that matter the wealth of info that Yahoo keeps on it's customers. Some businesses can be said to only exist to increase revenue for their owners. Look at all of the old software that is "supported" for the sake of businesses at extortionist rates and without any updates. Compared to them and a lot of other software businesses, A9 is pretty customer-focused.

I hate to say this, but if people keep spouting words like "severe privacy threat," when actual severe privacy threats (like Claria) arise, people won't listen.

Re:nobody uses A9

[numbsafari]

I don't own any and I agree with him.

User's should be able to make an informed decision about what they are willing to give up in exchange for valuable service. Some of that might be privacy.

The real thing to fear is what happens if Amazon.com were to violate the provisions contained within its privacy agreement or if it were to attempt to distort or hide the nature of that agreement or in some other way not properly acquire informed consent from the user. For that, user's have the court system at their disposal for adjudication under the contractual obligations set out within the privacy policy and the legal system under which the privacy policy is executed.

It's in Amazon's best interest to protect consumer data for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that the consumer data they hold has value. Outside of that, if they prove to be a less than trustworthy vendor people will avoid using the service.

I'm glad the company I work for employs a firewall admin who believes in freedom of choice and personal responsibility. If A9 were a security threat for the company then I could understand blocking it. But, please, that's a stretch that goes beyond reason.

Personally, I'd consider the admin who blocks a site like A9 more of a privacy threat than A9.

Concerns/Observations

[Enigma_Man]

I was taking a virtual drive around Boston, and could clearly see many people's faces. Do those people know that they're photographed, and on the internet for all to see?

Otherwise, very interesting. Some of the storefronts for businesses I know of were one or two pictures off to the left or right though, guess they're still working out the bugs.

-Jesse

Re:Concerns/Observations

[gatekeep]

I noticed this too.

For anyone who needs an example, search for 'sears' with zip code 60641. You'll get a picture of a store called 'Hats Plus' with only the edge of the sears store visible in the leftmost photo.

Now search for 'hats plus' and you'll get an imagine even further east along the same strip mall. You can verify they're next door by comparing the rightmost pics of the first search to the leftmost pics of the second search. Looks like the whole thing is about 50-100 feet off in that area.

Now, why is this? Probably because GPS is not 100% accurate. Even at it's best, consumer grade GPS (I'm going to assume A9 doesn't have access to military level equipment) is only accurate to about 20-30 feet. That also requires a relatively solid signal. In many areas, especially with large buildings, trees, and other obstructions, accuracy can drop to 100 feet or so. At this level of accuracy, you don't always see pictures of the business you're looking for, just the surrounding area.

It's a cool idea, but unless/until more accurate GPS gear is available it won't be much more reliable than following mapquest directions and looking for the nearest interesection.

erm, are you retarded?

[goldcd]

They've photographed storefronts - things you'd see yourself walking up and down a street. Now unless the secret terrorist targets are listing themselves in the yellow pages (is there even a section for secret terrorist targets)? I fail to see, sorry I can't even argue again your point, so vague and vacuous it appears to be.

This is an awesome idea, but...

[justinstreufert]

It looks like they kind of botched it. I'm not surprised, given the lag and inaccuracy of GPS in an urban environment (tall buildings = imperfect coverage) and the overall insanity of the whole project.

Basically I searched for some things in New York, and got some cool images. Not once was I looking at the actual storefront I asked for. Once, I was able to find the store by moving left two images down the block (a neat feature) but the next time I searched, I was not even on the same block with the restaurant I was looking for. Next search, there was a giant truck in front of the store I wanted. Woo!

It is really entertaining to walk up and down the block and take a look at all the poor slobs who A9 caught scratching themselves on some streetcorner. I wonder when we can count on the first lawsuit?

Justin

Re:Invasion of privacy

[Alpha27]

If you are on a public street, then there is no expectation of privacy. If you don't have a sign displaying your name, then it's a bit hard to map the image to you unless you're listed in the yellow pages, which in that case, defeats the idea of privacy.

So short answer, "no".

Irony

[NardofDoom]

I wanted to use A9 one day, so I googled for it.

Plumber

[barcodez]

Searching for plumber brings back some interesting images....

Re:It freaked me out!

[Enigma_Man]

When I RTFA'd, they mentioned that if they don't have any direct info about you, they'll use an IP->ZIP translator/database to guess where you are. They were a couple towns over from where I am.

-Jesse

Brothels

[cerberusss]

Hey, how can I search for brothels? That ought to deliver some cool pictures :)

Slow....

[MasterOfCeremonies]

I agree, the project is insane. It is inherently inaccurate and unmaintainable in the long term. A9 certainly has some very nice features, my problem with it is that these features slow the whole thing down so much (at least over the lake here is Australia). After being used to the lightning speed of Google I find myself impatient with A9.

Yellow pages?

[Underholdning]

This is not a yellow page searh. This is a web search with some added functionality. There's a big difference. If I search in a YP for "restaurant ohio" I want a restaurant in Ohio, not a lot of webpages about "ebook - the secret about Restaurant Ohio in Mexico".

To Save Space...

[jj00]

To Save Space...

They can use the same picture for all the Best Buys, Wal-Marts, etc...

Non-cookie version

[slyguy135]

Don't forget you can use http://generic.a9.com/ so they don't keep track of you (or at least don't LOOK as if they're keeping track of you...)

Ok, it's not bad

[digitalgimpus]

Though I do wonder how useful that will ever be.

It's not perfect, and the landscape is constantly changing. How often do they plan to refresh? How will they even do that?

A block in NYC can change dramatically in a year. Kind of hard to keep those pics up to date. Take a building down, put a new one up, or just remove the scafolding, and it looks like a different block.

Just my $0.02, but I think keeping that up to date and useful is going to be nearly impossible.

The French did it a few years ago

[Anonymous Coward]

The French yellow pages http://www.pagesjaunes.fr/ put online pictures of the streets of Paris France a few years ago. They did not use a van but good'ol pedestrians with Nikon digital cameras. It was perhaps in 2001 or 2002 if I remember correctly. Now you can visit Paris for free ;-)

Current and ACCURATE?

[sterno]

So I decided to play with it for a moment and see how cool it was. I did a search for a couple restaurants and shops nearby. It didn't have a listing for any of them, with or without photo. So I decided to search for something obvious: Dave and Busters.

The entry came up with a photo and everything, but the photo was wrong. They had the right block but they were off by about half a block. Impressive technological feat to be within half a block, but it makes the technology totally useless.

In the case of D&B, if you scan up the street you can see the big orange and blue awning and find it. But then I knew the street and so knew which direction to scroll when I saw that they were off. So now they combine the sometimes humorous inaccuracy of on-line maps with a new level of inaccuracy using street level photos.

You may be better off asking for directions from a real person :)

Re:Current and ACCURATE?

[Saige]

And if you look at the pictures of the street, when you scan over them, there's an option to select one of them as the 'best photo'. I presume that would alter which is shown to people.

Even if you don't know the business, that scanning over the street is sure to help you find the location, since now you can see what's around. And even if you've never been there, if the actual business is in a different photo than the original shown, you likely can help select the proper one for it.

They were able to get things close when using the GPS and such. They're relying on people using it to get things more exact - which is fair, since they're not going to be able to get everything correct automatically.