Amazon.com Inc. unveiled the new version of its Web search service on Wednesday in a move that could portend a long-anticipated clash between online retailers and search providers like Google Inc.
The revamped Web service from Seattle-based online retailer Amazon, dubbed A9, serves up organized information from various sources chosen by the user and includes the user’s own search history.
A9 presents results in a way that departs from offerings by market leaders Google and Yahoo Inc., which increasingly are pushing into the online shopping arena.
Most notably, Google is testing a price-comparison search engine called Froogle. Earlier this year Yahoo bought Kelkoo, a leading European comparison shopping engine.
“Search companies are moving into e-commerce and e-commerce is moving into search. These are both very important markets and over time there is going to be an ever-increasing overlap,” said Standard & Poor’s equity analyst Scott Kessler, who covers Google, Yahoo and online marketplace eBay Inc..
Web search has moved front and center at major companies like Yahoo, Amazon and Microsoft Corp.’s MSN in recent years after Google offered new, easy ways to find information on the Web and popularized search-related advertising that drives revenues by efficiently connecting buyers and sellers.
(MSNBC is a Microsoft-NBC joint venture.)
Google’s Web search ads are a big source of user traffic to eBay, which is a major buyer of Google’s keyword ads and has been beefing up search capabilities on its own site.
In April 2003, Amazon and Google struck a Web search advertising partnership.
A9's new service
Amazon’s A9 gives users access to Web search and image search results from Google; movie information from the Internet Movie Database; and reference information from GuruNet.com.
It also includes Amazon’s own “Search Inside the Book” service that has helped spur book sales.
Users of A9’s tool bar also can automatically search bookmarked and previously visited sites. A “Diary” tool allows users to take and keep notes on sites.
“In a sense it’s an extension of your memory. You find things you’ve seen before. You find things that you don’t know you’ve seen before,” Udi Manber, chief executive of Palo Alto, California-based A9, said in an interview.
While the new service is the latest salvo in the cut-throat sector dominated by Google, Kessler said he didn’t think A9 would rock the competitive landscape.
“I don’t really think that Google and Yahoo are shaking in their proverbial boots. I don’t see this as a tectonic shift,” Kessler said.
A representative for Google declined to comment and a Yahoo official was not immediately available.
