1.57% Amazon Shopping Advantage

Product marketplace leader Amazon and Google paid-listings are converging through the launch of A9.com owned by Amazon. A9 distributes Google's paid-listings to contribute to A9's revenue stream. To attract visitors to A9, Amazon just started to subsidize 1.57% of sales for selected buyers to promote A9.com usage. Anyone who would like to get additional 1.57% discount (50% of pie) of Amazon purchases can get it by signing up and start using A9.com. What a great instant rewarding idea!

How? Go to A9.com, sign up with the same email you use on Amazon, perform some searches, go back to Amazon. The extra 1.57% savings on top of other offers you found is yours.

Google Deskbar

Similar to the idea of Blinx that I mentioned in my previous posting, Google Lab rolled out an desktop version of search tool for Windows platform. The Google Deskbar is a toolbar that you install and appear on the Window's status bar so you can search from any Windows application anytime you need. Once you type in a keyword in the search box, it is easy to perform Web, news, images, definition, theasurus, groups searches and switch among them.

Google Local Search

Google Local Search has matched Yahoo's Local Search with a map display to show the matched results near by a given address. The move heat up the technical competition between Yahoo and Google. At the end, consumers are the ones who benefit from the more mature technology.