Detroit's Marwil Bookstore or purchasing them on the internet from online competitors, such as Amazon and eBay. After Marwil had been in business at WSU for some 59 years, Brian Kramer had seen textbook prices nearly triple over a period of two decades. According to a 2005 survey conducted by the National Association of College Students, about 25 percent of students had begun purchasing textbooks online. Another drastic change was when Wayne State opened a $6 million, 28,000-square-foot Barnes & Noble college bookstore right across the street in 2002. Marwil didn't have the fancy store front, cafe or music and apparel that was
A9.com founders and a former AltaVista and Amazon.com executive, was named president. In June 2009, A9 acquired SnapTell, which developed smartphone-based visual search applications. Stasior left in October 2012 to join Apple Inc. and work on Siri. Brian Pinkerton, who had developed WebCrawler in the 1990s, became general manager of A9 in 2012. A9.com originally operated a search portal, along with an A9 toolbar, which was first demonstrated on April 14, 2004. The service featured some innovative design elements, allowing users to choose from over 400 sources to search and view results in separate columns grouped by source. In addition to