Google second class with hipsters?

Like the tight-fitting fashions and teeny rock bands of last season's frothy nighttime soap "The O.C.," Google is like...so...yesterday.

Writers for the popular show on Fox chose to plug Amazon.com's new search engine A9.com as a synonym for hunting down something on the Web, instead of using the well-worn phrase "I Googled it," like leagues of others. "I A9.com'd him last night, and according to the O.C. Weekly, he's pretty much everything that's wrong with Western civilization," one of the cast members said to another on Thursday night's episode.

Western civilization (the media) has pretty much been obsessed with Google in recent years, making it a household name and a verb for Web research on anything from shopping to prospective dates. But apparently in hipper echelons of entertainment and media, there's a new game in town. In testament to that notion, A9, which launched in September with a more personalized approach to Web search, said it did not pay to have its name mentioned on "The O.C."

"We didn't even know it was going to air," A9 Chief Udi Manber said. But "it shows people like...A9...and that they are telling their friends and family."