Google Collars Coveted Amazon Head
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Written By Reprise Media | February 8, 2006 | Share This
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Yesterday, John Battelle broke the news that Udi Manber, heretofore the search chief at Amazon’s troubled A9 engine, will soon join Google as a VP of Engineering (more from Seattle PI). Score it as yet another feather in the search giant’s cap, following their recent acquisitions of such net notables as Vinton Cerf and Louis Monier; Battelle calls Manber “One of the leading lights in the search world, on nearly everyone’s ‘Top Brains in Search’ list.”
The hire would seem to solidify Google’s near-hegemony search, but most of the buzz centers on Amazon. Whither A9? Paul Kedrosky is for straight-up euthanasia, saying “It is past time Amazon killed the failing search venture.” If we go by the numbers, it’s easy to see why: in the Seattle PI report, Pier Jaffray senior net analyst Safa Rashtchy guesses that Amazon spends about 10 percent of their tech budget on search, while A9 commands a paltry 0.1 percent of the market.
Search Engine Journal’s Loren Baker, however, sees plenty of potential in a poorly marketed brand. He laments that despite Amazon’s cornucopia of useful search gadgets, from linking tool Alexa to their meat-and-potatoes Book Search, the ecommerce firm can’t seem to get out of their own way with regard to A9. First off, the name: “It’s meaningless and not a strong or memorable brand,” he says. Further analyzing Amazon’s missteps, Baker surmises that A9 suffered from the “spin-off curse of side projects by [Amazon] which launch to a hail of fanfare, only to be put on the backburner or pushed to the side later down the line, never accomplishing the task of gathering public interest.”
That said, Baker (and certainly Amazon) must see a glimmer of hope in Manber’s replacement, Intel Corp.’s erstwhile VP and research director David Tennenhouse. The turnover, writes Baker, represents “a chance for Amazon to start from a clean slate with the A9 experiment.”
Topics: People on the Move |
I wish Amazon would focus more in its core business as an online retailer. 9 out of 10 items on their site are being sold through their affiliate network where the free shipping over $25 and Amazon’s customer service do not apply.