Originally published April 2 2005
Amazon launches syndication feature to its A9 search engine
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Amazon launches OpenSearch, a platform wherein content suppliers are allowed to syndicate search results from their own search engines. This new feature benefits users because it means that when a user utilizes Amazon's A9, Web sites not normally covered by a typical search will now be included. Industry analysts claim that blogs benefit most from OpenSearch.
"Amazon came to search late in the game, so they are using different techniques and developing unique tools to gain traction," says Yankee Group analyst Su Li Walker.
Although this latest feature is not a must-have for users of search, "it is something interesting that consumers might want to test out."
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Amazon has introduced OpenSearch, a tech platform that will allow content providers to syndicate search results from their own search engines, as the latest addition to its own search engine, A9.com.
The new tool brings Web sites that ordinarily would not be part of a traditional search to the forefront.
"Users can go through and choose what they want to see searched," Yankee Group analyst Su Li Walker tells NewsFactor.
The way A9.com is set up, users can search from among several options -- including by blogs, by books, by images or by the yellow pages.
Offering the syndication technology is one way Amazon hopes to stand apart from search giants Google, Yahoo and MSN.
Because no other engine offers it -- at least, not yet -- it may be a competitive differentiator for Amazon.
Blogs may well be the subject of the next feature skirmish in the battle of the search engines.
Yahoo, for example, just announced a social-networking tool for blogs that it plans to incorporate into its portal.
"It will bring everything that Yahoo offers -- from content to e-mail to mapping -- even closer together by creating stickiness for the portal," Walker says.
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