Amazon.com’s search site, A9, has scaled back drastically. The rewards program is gone, as are bookmarks and history. They’ve even discontinued the A9 toolbar.

This of course brings up questions about some of the site integration technologies that they developed. OpenSearch has already taken on a life of its own, and in fact the new A9 seems to be mostly an OpenSearch aggregator. But what of SiteInfo? Continue reading

Some odd searches through which people have found this site over the last two weeks:

  • “vice presidential debate drinking game” somehow hit Fallacious Arguments, despite the fact that the post never mentions a drinking game.
  • “breakdown girl” hit Donna Troy via Yahoo images search. Somehow it seems appropriate.
  • “folsom street fair 2004 pictures” and similar phrases directed several people to Living in Middle Earth, though I can’t imagine why.
  • “sugar packet” — I think someone was looking for real sugar (image search again).
  • “rhyming poems by katherine foreman” hit (big surprise) Katie’s Rhyming Poems. (What’s it like to be famous?)
  • “space pirate amazon ninja catgirl” sounds ridiculous, wich is exactly why I posted about the game
  • “jesse quick in love” actually hit the speed force and Jesse’s mother, but not Jesse Quick herself.
  • “how to steal flash” brings up the Flash Museum. I have to wonder what they were actually looking for, though.
  • “xxx hermione” and similar (some of them rather explicit) — WTF? These hit Harry Potter Titles I’d Like To See.

Unfortunately there are too many phrases for the stats program I use to show anything that hit less than twice — and that’s where the really odd ones to show up! I’ve skimmed the logs a bit, and some of the choice items include: Continue reading