• by Shankar Gupta , August 17, 2005

Amazon.com's search engine, A9, Tuesday launched a map and directions site with a twist: where most of the site's competitors--Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps, and MSN's Virtual Earth--incorporate satellite photos into their map product, A9 instead uses its unique Block View technology, which gives street-level storefront photos for thousands of miles of streets in major metropolitan areas.

A9 is a minor mapping player in terms of market share, with a unique audience of just over 1.2 million users, compared to Mapquest's 39.2 million, Yahoo! Local's 22.2 million, and Google Maps' 13.3 million.

But the A9 Maps offers something none of its competitors do--ground-level close-up photos of storefronts and homes on streets in a variety of cities. Kelsey Group analyst Greg Sterling said that the user experience offered by A9 might give it an advantage in the long run. "They seem to be in this for the long haul--they don't seem to have a lot of market pressure on this to monetize search or to build their traffic rapidly," he said. "Their goal seems to be to address an improved search from a technology and user experience--snd they're backed by Amazon, of course, which is a deep pocket."

The A9 Maps product's distinguishing feature, Block View, was initially incorporated into A9's Yellow Pages search. To construct it, Amazon used trucks equipped with digital cameras and GPS and drove around major urban areas, photographing as they went. The result is a mosaic of photos that, when combined, map the storefronts and home fronts of New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and 18 other U.S. cities.

According to Sterling, Block View at the moment is viewed more as a novelty than a serious innovation to search engine technology. But that could change if users respond to the product. "Competitors are often aping each other, and seeing what sticks," he said. "The line between novelty and utility is a moving target, yesterday's novelty is today's utility, and once people get used to a tool, they have trouble going back."