Amazon released their search engine A9.com which is really google search plus other things rolled into one. Aki emailed out about it, and I emailed him back my comments. Might as well post them here too:

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eh, seems kind of shitty. why would i want to search all those different categories at once? If I am looking up a movie, I will immediately go to imdb.com. If i'm looking for a book, immediately to amazon. etc etc

I don't really find the need to search all those places at one time. If you just select everything, you get too much crap on the webpage.

I think the problem here isn't searching different sources, but the fact that the information isn't filtered and presented well.

Personally I think Sherlock is fucking awesome. But not many people use it. I absolutely love the yellow pages.

Find "subway" near "Sachin"
Find "jiffy lube" near "apple"
find "aaa" near "nikhil"

It's smart. It knows who I am, where I live, where my friends live. It can find the results most relavent to me.

the problem is different results need to be presented differently. For example, Sherlock's movie results vs ebay results vs flights, vs yellow pages. Each is presented in the best way for that particular data.
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Basically I think the web is good since it's a generally solution for presenting any and all data, but it's not the BEST solution. The best solution will always be to write an application to specifically do what you want. For example, an email application will always be better than web based email. Web based email doesn't auto save the message you're typing. Have fun when your browser window accidentally closes or crashes.