Amazon’s A9 came out of beta with much fanfare and continues to get rave reviews because of a new feature which keeps track of your search history. This can be quite useful for those that are trying to retrace their steps to get at a vital piece of information. Bookmarks are single points of reference like an address. But the human brain doesn’t always work this way – sometimes it’s easier to remember how you got somewhere. A9’s Search History takes this geographical metaphor to the virtual world of clickstreams.
I notice that Ask Jeeves has a similar feature on it’s My Jeeves which is currently in Beta.
The other feature that I enjoy using is the image search which throws up images related to your search query right alongside and in context with the web hits. This is especially useful when doing searches on individuals. For those of you into vanity searches, it’s always a kick to scroll through all the people out there that share your name.
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