Net search gets better

Jeeves the friendly search butler went on vacation and has come back looking 20 years younger. CNET cleverly called it Jeeves's "extreme makeover," because there's more to Jeeves than the animated character that's gotten spiffed up. Now there's MyJeeves, "a personalized storage locker for Web surfers' search results"; "Smart Search" for more local information (map, movies, weather, plus spell check, conversions - loads of ways to search); and - in the near future - Jeeves's own search toolbar for your desktop. But Jeeves is not alone in improving Web searching. According to CNET, Yahoo and Google are one step ahead of him at least in the area of searching for local info. And Google's had its own desktop toolbar for some time. Then there's Amazon's new A9.com. Here's what USAToday says you can do with it: "Drag and drop search results into an online virtual bookmark on Amazon's new search engine. Also available: an online 'diary' to make notes about each saved site." The USAToday piece takes a closer look at this whole phenomenon of next-generation, personalized Web search tools.