Why Amazon Firefly is important

At any given point in time it’s easy to assume that search engines have evolved as much as they’re ever going to. Sometimes it’s hard to avoid falling into the logic that was allegedly uttered long ago by Charles Duell: “Everything that can be invented has been invented.”

Putting the gimmicky eye candy called “Dynamic Perspective” aside for a moment, there’s another element to Amazon’s recently-announced Fire phone that everyone in the content industry needs to focus on: Firefly.

On the surface, Firefly also feels like a Fire phone gimmick. In reality, it’s a next generation search platform and likely to be the first significant Google challenger. I’m not suggesting Google will disappear or feel the pain anytime soon, but Firefly will force them to evolve.

Firefly lets you snap pictures of objects so you can buy them from Amazon. It’s the next step in showrooming, the process brick-and-mortar retailers loathe. Publishers need to look beyond Firefly’s ability to enable one-click purchase of a physical book sitting on a table. Rather, publishers need to consider how Firefly will eventually enable the discovery and consumption of all types of digital content as well.

Let’s say you’re at the ballpark watching the Pittsburgh Pirates play. You snap a picture of the beautiful city skyline, looking out from behind home plate in PNC Park. You’re curious to learn more about the park, the team or maybe even the city itself.

Instead of clicking the camera button, click the Firefly button on your Fire phone. Rather than just getting a photo you might not ever look at again, your screen is filled with search results. These aren’t just the website links you get from Google though. You’re looking at all sorts of free and paid content you can consume now or later.

All the usual suspects are included here. You’ll see links to books about the team, park and city. But you’ll also have an opportunity to buy the program, print or digital, from today’s game. And maybe there’s a link to purchase a digital edition of today’s local paper or just portions of it (e.g., the sports section, just those articles covering today’s game, etc.) The results could also include articles about the team/park/city, accessible via either a trial subscription or maybe they’ll ultimately be free thanks to the ever-expanding reach of Amazon Prime. 

Don’t forget that all these results won’t just appear in random order. Amazon will develop a search algorithm as sophisticated as Google’s, but with the benefit of all Amazon’s “customers who viewed x also viewed y” data and capabilities.

Most importantly, don’t forget the power of paid placement in these results. Amazon has generated plenty of revenue from publishers for placement and promotional campaigns. Firefly will open the door to an enormous number of new ways Amazon can charge publishers for premium placement in those Firefly search results.

I haven’t forgotten that you’re sitting at a baseball game and the last thing you want to do is flip through search results and spend time reading content on your phone. That leads me to another model I suspect we’ll see from the Firefly search platform: save for later.

Web searches today focus exclusively on the here and now. You search, find what you need and you move on. Firefly opens the door to a lengthier relationship between user and search results.  You can’t be bothered with all the Firefly details when you’re trying to watch the baseball game. That’s why you’ve configured Firefly to save those results for later retrieval. They could sit in a holding area in your Amazon account, similar to your Amazon Wish List, or maybe they’ll be delivered to you via email. The more likely scenario is that Amazon will do both, of course. Amazon knows the value of data and reminding customers of what they like, so expect to see plenty of notifications about these potential one-click purchase opportunities.

None of this functionality exists today, of course. And most of it won’t be available when the Fire phone ships in July. But rest assured that these and plenty of other innovations will eventually be available through the Firefly feature. Amazon’s #1 goal is to get consumers to buy things and Firefly is a huge step forward in making those transactions happen more frequently and conveniently.