April 17, 2004

Amazon.com Gets in Search

Amazon decided it wants a piece of the search engine game with the release of A9.com beta. The company differentiates its service with "search inside the book" content and the ability to keep track of the history of your queries. The basic toolbar add-on is also available. The reason Amazon is getting into this market is paid search advertising is making hundreds of millions of dollars for the likes of Yahoo/Overture and Google. I'm a bit skeptical, noting that Amazon has tried to get into new internet markets like auction vs. eBay in the past with limited success. Read