Here’s the correct URL to Alexa’s blog post regarding the “war of words”
post.

http://awis.blogspot.com/2007/.....holic.html

Sorry for the miscue.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007...../#comments

What’s most interesting with Alexa’s response in the post above, is what they are not stating.

What now is the direction for Alexa’s AWIS API and why should any 3rd party developers support new developments using their data?

http://atopsites.com/

It wouldn’t, perhaps, have something to do with
his very high level of supportive activity within the
Awis developer forums would it?

Seems here, on behalf of Statsaholic, that Alexa
may be practicing a dual standard?

Hey, Quantcast: knock, knock - there’s an opportunity
for you guys to release your API to validate what
Alexa may already know is a better product!!

I just hope, for sake of the user community, that Alexa does not continue to apply this type of “big company sqeeze the little company” mentality against the rest of their value added developer community.

Does anyone know when Compete.com or Ranking.com plan to include d-a-i-l-y stats to further level the playing field against Alexa?

An RSS API would also be nice to easily mash up the domain valuation data with other services so that the long tail web publishers could finally enjoy a more effective way to benchmark themselves within their business categories.

Alexa, so far, appears to restrict their API only to hard core development types.

you compare Alexaholic to Movers2.0, but the Movers2.0 guys have noticed Alexa’s weak points long ago, they are far from an Alexa subsidiary. They already included Quantcast and compete to their numbers. Check out: http://movers20.esnips.com Just click on any link “more”

Daniel

Here’s a simple mathematical example.

Suppose there are 1 billion internet users today, and website A gets 100 million views/day. Then their global reach is 10%.

Now, suppose a year from now, there are 2 billion internet users, and website A gets 150 million views/day. Their traffic is up 50%, but their global reach is down to 7.5%.

Barring some monumental screwup in Alexa’s data store (highly unlikely), those sites are going down because others are going up. Alexa data is relative, not absolute, so if one site’s graph goes up, another must go down. Reach is measured in X visitors *per 1 million* thru Alexa’s service. Same with pageviews. Alexa’s intended use is in comparative traffic analysis… it is not meant to mirror your internal, absolute web metrics.

err…yes you did set yourself up for that one, Ron

Mike D.’s correct on the TM issue for Amazon; if they allow you, tough to stop others from doing the same thing.

Since “they” didn’t mind your name in the beginning, it’s pretty clear that whoever(s?) didn’t “mind” didn’t check w/legal before “not minding.”

Agree w/Mike also that in the long run, this name change will be nothing but a big positive for you and your company.

In addition to differentiating you from the competition, if you should ever want to sell your company, top dollar would be tough to realize as long as your name included someone else’s TM…

Best wishes.

One thing that sometimes gets lost in these incidents is that trademark holders are actually *required* to vigorously defend their trademark, or else they risk losing it. It’s the same reason Tivo doesn’t let other companies use the term “Tivo” as a generic word for DVR. If the word slips into what’s considered common usage, the company can actually lose some of their trademark rights.

Since your redirect remains intact, I actually look at this as a net plus for you. It lets you transition your site into a more all-around traffic comparison destination and weans you off the Alexa brand slightly.

I was going to send you an email, but since you raised some questions in this thread, I’ll address them right here.

I was scratching my own itch when I created AttentionMeter.. I was sick of jumping around sites to compare traffic stats.. and instead of waiting for someone to create something (remember I sent you an email, I think back in Oct/Nov with a similar idea?), I just created a quick and dirty site one lazy Sunday afternoon. You probably can relate to this situation.

Was it inspired by Alexaholic? Most certainly. I wanted *you* to do this in the first place! The Alexa chart interface elements were inspired by a standard that was created by Alexaholic/you. Hell, Alexa’s new chart box is also similar to your chart box. You should ask them for attribution as well :))

I do want to clarify that the JS used on AttentionMeter (heart of the site) is very straightforward, and admittedly a little crude - just ‘View Source’ of the page. The code was *NOT* copied from your site — yours seems to be very much more complex, and quite frankly — I have no idea what is in it! Looks like you encrypted/compressed it.. or at least made it v. hard to decipher.

I’m not looking to make money from the site — notice no adverts, no Google adsense, nothing on the site. I’ll be happy if the site is of use to even one more person besides myself. I spent time developing the site, it might as well live free and be of use.

I’m more than happy to link to Statsaholic.com.

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phew — this has got to be my longest blog comment till date!