Is Amazon (AMZN) taking on Google? Last fall the giant online retailer announced that it was launching a company focused exclusively on search. Lest anyone miss the implications, Amazon promptly rented an office far from its Seattle headquarters -- in the epicenter of Silicon Valley, near Stanford University.
Tapped to lead the startup (A9 -- the name stands for the nine letters in the word "algorithm") was Udi Manber, Amazon's chief algorithms officer and Yahoo's former chief scientist. Widely respected for his elegant approaches to intractable software problems, Manber was a magnet for Silicon Valley talent. (Either in jest or retaliation, Google responded by buying advertisements on its own search engine for the phrase 'Udi Manber'; type his name into the search form and the top ad link offers job opportunities at Google.)
But Amazon already knows who you are -- or at least, what you buy. .With A9, the company can factor in what you browse and search for as well.
The most obvious feature is your personal search history -- which is integrated into your entire search experience. So your entire search history is available to you, and with the toolbar, that includes all your searches across any search site, as well as all your browsing on the Web.
The history server stores -- on our servers -- your history of interaction with us for the purpose of bringing that back to you in a very convenient way. Whenever you come to the site, we can show you what you searched for in the past in a very easy-to-organize fashion.
I'm very proud of our toolbar's diary feature that allows you to annotate each site you visit. And we have integrated Amazon's "search inside the book" feature into the engine, so now all your results include excerpts from related books.
..having the data of what users search for or where they go is not a new concept. Any site that requires registration -- AOL or MSN, for example -- already has this information. What is new is that we're taking this information and giving it back to the users to make their search experience better and more useful. It gives them more power.
Most illuminating quotes...In truth, Amazon and Google are speeding from two ends toward a very fertile middle ground where commerce and search meet.
The whole goal here is to get better customer experience. Whatever I can find to get better customer experience, I'll do it.
What happens if A9 starts to steal market share from Google? We don't talk about other companies, and to be honest, we don't even think too much about competitors. We try to concentrate completely on the users. I don't look at it as who we compete with but rather how much something helps the users.
You've said search is not solved. What are the problems that need to be addressed?
In general, the main problem of search is very simple: Too often people do not get the results they need. Solving that is hard. We cannot read people's minds, but we can do much better anticipating their needs and making the process much easier for them."
posted by Jen @ 6:49 AM
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