It seems I’m a late comer but this is still noteworthy: A9</a> is here!
And what, pray, is A9?
So glad you asked! A9 is Amazon’s search portal. And (get this) it is powered by Google - complete with AdWords listings for search results and all!
This will surely cause some stir on the search world but for the user it is a very useful new service. Not because of the web-search as we already have Google for that and in this case the results are exactly the same, but because it combines the web-search function with Amazon’s own “Search Inside the Book” technology and (even more importantly) their book database.
When Amazon first came up with their “Search Inside the Book” programme and started scanning in and indexing their book inventory many people wondered how this new source of (huge amounts of) information could fit in with the information already on the web.
Could this be the answer? It seems very rational, Google (or whomever takes the crown in that battle, my bets are on Google just now) indexes the web and Amazon indexes the written books. And then you have a single interface to search both. Neat, huh?
Anyway, try out A9</a> and don’t forget to open the “Book Results” tab to the right or you will miss the whole point of this service! ;)