Amazon has just unveiled its own search engine, which is aimed at businesses and intends to compete with the online Yellow Pages industry.
One of the coolest features is something called “Block View”, which shows the surrounding streets and businesses at a given location.
According to The Denver Post online magazine, “A unique new feature of Amazon’s A9 online search engine allows users to browse photographs of storefronts and entire streets in downtown Denver and nine other U.S. cities.”
According to TheAge.com, “The services uses trucks equipped with digital cameras, global positioning system receivers, and proprietary software and hardware that includes 20 million images from 10 US cities.”
The next step I suppose will a be a virtual tour into the lobby to wait half and hour for your virtual customer service rep to hand you off to someone who can actually help you.
Now if this online tool could check the line at the post office in real time, I would be exstatic, but for now I don’t want to get me virtual hopes up.
