A9, Amazon’s Search Portal, Goes Live

A9, Amazon’s book and related search engine, has gone live. It is, in effect, an e-cmoorce search egine, meant to drive people to buy products on Amazon. But it is using Google for general web search. It also has customization built in, where it captures your historical searches.

John Battelle thinks it is a step backwards for Google: “If A9 is as good as it seems to be, every customer that uses and/or switches to A9 becomes an A9 search customer, and, more likely than not, a deeper and far more loyal Amazon customer.”

Some more factual info here

Update: Rex Hammock thinks that the killer app for Amazon would be the collaborative filtering technology that it has used so effectively. “Amazon’s amazing skills at such application of collaborative filtering in providing search results will be A9s’ true secret sauce. As you look for information, Amazon will provide you the results that “people like you” have found most helpful when searching for the same information, product, place, answer, etc. With A9, however, I predict the results won’t be limited to URLs, but will link to passages in books, products in stores, scenes in movies, insights from reviewers (and bloggers?)…all based on the preferences displayed by people who have similar patterns of purchasing (and searching and clicking) as you.”

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