A9: Searching the Web for Me - The Impact on the Search World
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Will A9 soon bump the giants of search off of their pedestals? I highly doubt it. After all, Google must be fairly comfortable that this won't happen if they're OK to provide the back-end for the project! However, it is obvious that people generally prefer a personalized surfing experience, even if it's just a simple search.
It is also very enjoyable to have extensive information about a site at your finger tips. Perhaps more than enjoyable, this 'Site Info' button could become quite addictive, as we get used to obtaining useful site info with a simple move of the mouse.
So as far as Google, Yahoo, and MSN are concerned, there's probably no huge threat to them here. But I'm sure that if any of the A9 features really do become popular, we'll be seeing similar tools popping up throughout the SE world.
There are mixed thoughts on this subject though. At this point I am prone to side with those who see A9 as a nice search engine, with a few fancy features to be copied. However, I clearly lack vision though, as there are others who see great potential here. It has been observed that this memory-endowed, knowledge-based approach to searching could be the next Google killer. Feel free to hop on the forums, and share your opinion about this!
And does this new search engine mean anything for us as web administrators and/or search gurus? Do we need to learn new techniques to achieve higher rankings within A9? Do we need to worry about which books will surface with our website? Well, so far no, as the results are still drawn from Google. But who knows what the future holds.
Why is it So Ugly?
Sorry, despite all my research, I wasn't able to find an answer for this one. Unfortunately the year put into developing the beta engine doesn't seem to have included time for UI consideration. The brown on brown color scheme gives one the overwhelming feeling of being in a very old and dull library (how fitting for Amazon). Hopefully the next revision will allow us a degree of personalization with our own color scheme!
Conclusion
I suggest you draw your own conclusions about A9. But to do so, make some use of it. Try to control your fingers for a couple weeks - as they instinctively try to type google.com, try a9.com instead. Download the toolbar, annotate a little with the diary feature, have fun. You may find yourself hopelessly enamored with the future of personalized search!
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