[this post was originally posted as a comment to John Battelle's Searchblog - http://battellemedia.com/archives/000575.php]
NOTE: Editing of the posting has been made coming to ease up structure and readability. One relevant aspect for the Sustainopreneur is to find her or his way thru the Information Universe in order to survive the info overload that is bombarding, and filter what is relevant for just his or her. Thus this posting of a new search engine, that focus more on providing "Knowledge" rather than "Information", combined with the excellent "Collaborative filtering" that comes with so many shop-sites - "People who XXX this, also YYY this". Here in the form of, "People who visited this website, also found interest in this one.". This is unique coming for the A9 that maybe will make Google disappear as a pure provider to other engines. The web search for this A9 venture is powered by Google, but the business is a subsidiary of Amazon.
For short summary of features of A9, turn to the John Battelle's blog posting above, and the Engine itself and review it there.
---
Beta version.
Room for improvement, and progressive use of initial user's comments filling that room, I guess. So, following with a guess the A9 management reads the line of intelligble comments that was dropped in the comment I did on John Battelles posting in his blog, I rather was putting my instant first use improvement suggestions there - and here in my own blog, rather than using some feedback form or so.
- Firstly, moving into more "intelligence" in the World of Searching the World Online. That's the thing.
Remember the Apple early vision of "Knowledge Navigator"? We're migrating to that more and more now. Depth in searches and including the searching inside the book feature makes sense. And the "memory" added. History. The more simple AI engines coming forward, the more learning from my searchers, that this opens the door for with intelligent database usage with an interaction done, now permissed to track my search history, the better. Some excessive datamining here, the information also could improve the "generic" world of searching. It's an open door for some groundbreaking improvements in the world of Search Quality. Remember that it was the key feature, only to include one thing to improve the world of searching that made Google stick out - tracking how many web sites that link to this, and improving the search position as one of the parameters. Two or three intelligent uses of these kinds of features, would make A9 to stand out totally. Even if its Amazon commercialization is obvious, and perhaps annoying, if you let yourself be annoyed of those who wants to grab your bucks. But don't rely on my convenience and laziness only. I can find Amazon stuff elsewhere. You don't HAVE to buy it there, because price comparison European leader Kelkoo is for my prospective buying anyways (http://www.kelkoo.com).
- Secondly, to increase the number of users switching to A9, if you want it, the Tell A Friend thing using email, and tracking that email with a permission from you to see if your friend also is an A9 user, including it next time you log on to A9 (or if not - a mail saying - "Hey, use A9"), the obvious community of your friends around you, that special community that everyone is trying to have yourself to speed "remarkable" stuff talking to Seth Godin, would increase the number of users. A9 as in itself a strong ideavirus, I would say. It surely created a buzz this week! (http://www.sethgodin.com) But just a lame tell a friend referral, the obvious sharing of "This page might be of interest of you, since I remeber that you are in the Biz of YYY" or "Hey, look what I find for your paper/blog/magazine/book to come/birthday present to ZZZ". Whatever. Remember one thing - the best search engine still is the People. More efficient to ask a person to get the Real Quality coming from an entity having I-N-T-U-I-T-O-N. That's why Human to Human Interaction should be of use for this! With this "Searches suggested by XXX" on top when logging in to A9 for your morning cup of coffee and another day in the networked world. Soon wireless everywhere ultrawideband.
- Thirdly, that sure brings me to the final thing to say.
"What shall Google do?"
(in the same breath this Amazon page ha ha - "Googlemania" from Wired in the Amazon spot - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00005N7TL/ref=pd_ecs_mag_eb_a/002-5014890-9545626?v=glance&s=magazines&n=)
That eBook by the same Godin, a collaborative effort by many (me included...yeah, ok, shameless self promotion is not the case, promise!), maybe A9 would be the one implementing the stuff I suggested there (that's the reason of me mentioning it, the issue was in central :);
And searching A9 on that phrase; :) - the top result from "What shall Google Do?" brought it to my little joy;
http://www.on-a-mission.org/google.htm
From our business website, where this suggestion was in that published eBook all the way relevant to download in this context!(http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2003/08/word_on_the_str.html)
So, I run it here. Again. Why? Let it talk for itself.
"I'll just make it simple. For every search you do, 1 cent goes to an investment fund for long term poverty eradication and empowerment. Like the fund we are in the loop to build up. There is in global interest of having poverty eradicated. My mind is all too set on it to think of anything more than above :)."
Period. End of story. Thanks for having you following me to here.
Peace,
Anders
"sustaionpreneur"
Blog - http://www.andersabrahamsson.net - this note posted as a comment to http://battellemedia.com/archives/000575.php blogpost of Search Engine Guru John Battelle in the first place
Business - http://www.on-a-mission.org - this being the Walk of the Talk of the last suggestion for improvement (waiting for the Full Version of A9 to include this feature) :)
Comments