search on Google, shop on Amazon

I Google much more than I Amazon, so it took me until this Christmas to realize that Amazon now owns shopping like Google owns search, and this post on Skrentablog just put the analogy together for me. 

I was looking for very specific sports memorabilia and started with some Google searches.  Not to find the items, but to find the merchants most likely to carry the items.  Few Googles later had nice triangulated list of a few very specific sports memorabilia merchants that would be by far the most likely suspects.  Disappointing results however.  Amazon next.  Results?  A Wal-Mart quantity, Lexus quality list of matches, quickly identified and later easily parsed with all the niceties of Amazon.  It was like looking at three top jewelery stores for a certain type of necklace, not finding any good ones, then finding 30 of them at Sears.  Of course, long-tail items like this has been integral in Amazon's success, but I didn't know it had extended this far off the bookshelf, into just about every retail realm.

Full disclosure: the recent market downturn caused my trade trigger to fire, but I'll soon be  a (small) shareholder again!