Search Inside the Search?

Amazon.com announced this week that it was entering the Search Engine Wars with its own search engine service, A9.com. The service will allow users to store and edit bookmarks, keep track of links visited by page, and make and retrieve notes on visited pages. A9 currently uses Google search results, with Google and Amazon sharing advertising revenue gleaned from the combined effort.

Competition in the search field continues to drive innovation, with new competitors like A9.com, Vivisimo and KartOO bringing new approaches to searching, and with Google and Yahoo adding features like searching WorldCat. Better tools should lead users to better, more focused results. Stay tuned.

"Amazon to Take Searches On Web to a New Depth", by John Markoff, The New York Times, September 15, 2004, p. C6.