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We will be retiring Alexa.com

support.alexa.com

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Re: We will be retiring Alexa.com

#231
Why is Amazon retiring Alexa as opposed to spinning it off and selling? It must have some value. Google is great for shutting projects that must be worth something spun off, even at an early stage.

Is there a general reason tech companies retire over selling?

Re: We will be retiring Alexa.com

#232
post #87
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how apple.com can rank over youtube.com? In what way is apple a daily service that people must access? I guess some apple service that I don't use like music?

Cloudflare only has access to DNS requests made to their resolvers, not the amount of bandwidth utilized (which would certainly push Netflix and YouTube up) or the number of requests made. They also have some vaguely defined fudge factors to their rankings. To take a guess at why Apple is so high, I think bundling all of these together might help their rank: - App store downloads - iOS updates - Apple TV+ streaming -…

- push notifications (APNs)

Almost every Apple device is constantly connected to these servers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Push_Notification_servic...

Re: We will be retiring Alexa.com

#233
post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Used to be? Is it no longer public?

It's still public, but now it is behind a login, and people can see who has looked at their tax info.

Out of interest, what would be a socially acceptable reason to lookup someone's info?

Re: We will be retiring Alexa.com

#234

It's sort of wild to think that Amazon purchased Alexa.com in 1999 for ~$250M in stock, and that stock would be worth more than $7B today, if my math is correct. Bought a website ranking company, used the company's name as the name of a consumer electronics assistant, and then shuttered the company 22 years later to (presumably) be able to use the domain name for more consumer electronics.

Did they just have extreme foresight about wanting the domain alexa.com or were they genuinely interested in alexa.com as a product? They kept it around for 22 years after all but I can't see how what alexa.com used to do has anything to do with what amazon is doing.

They bought it for data gathering and market/competitor research. I was with Amazon at the time. Was great for keeping track of what products were drawing most traction on eBay (Longaberger baskets and Beanie babies, says my vague memory)

Re: We will be retiring Alexa.com

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still public, but now it is behind a login, and people can see who has looked at their tax info.

Out of interest, what would be a socially acceptable reason to lookup someone's info?

Now: next to none.

Before: anything. Everybody did it if they had the slightest reason if my observations were correct. Just like I remember Norwegians taking a sauna (those who had) with friends or family or showering before swimming or after exercise at school, nobody thought about the fact that they were naked between peers it seemed.

Today every kid complains about showering at school and everyone are very secretive about their income records.

This is just observation, not judgement. I think there are good reasons on both sides of both questions even if I am conservative as few (not American "conservative", I just think it is smart to change society slowly and thoughtfully).

Re: We will be retiring Alexa.com

#236

Are there any alternatives? I enjoy watching the long-term decline of the websites of former employers I don't like.

I have an ex boss who at some time told me he used to look up names of ex employees to verify that none of them earned more after they left that company He paid decently, true, but givrn the way things developed (he had a couple of seriously toxic senior engineers) I'm happy to say that I went to 20-40% (depending on how you look at bonuses, in Norway that is a lot anyway) higher salary in my next job and have kept g…

Possibly of interest to HN readers, California state employee salaries are all public, including UC and CSU professors.

Re: We will be retiring Alexa.com

#237

It was a bad idea 25 years ago, and still its a bad idea. I will never forget the day our company fired two brilliant marketing guys just because the Alexa ranking of the site dropped 100 points.

On a logical level, public rankings are almost always a bad idea because they incentivize hardcore gaming of the system. On an emotional level though, they are a fantastic idea because we're always looking for simple heuristics to make quick judgements by

Re: We will be retiring Alexa.com

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of interest, what would be a socially acceptable reason to lookup someone's info?

Now: next to none. Before: anything. Everybody did it if they had the slightest reason if my observations were correct. Just like I remember Norwegians taking a sauna (those who had) with friends or family or showering before swimming or after exercise at school, nobody thought about the fact that they were naked between peers it seemed. Today every kid complains about showering at school and everyone are very secret…

Yes that was my point. When it was publicly accessible for everyone there wasn't a problem, but now that the information has to be explicitly requested (and the subject is alerted and provided the requestor's details) I was curious as to whether there were still any socially-acceptable reasons to request that info.

Re: We will be retiring Alexa.com

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still public, but now it is behind a login, and people can see who has looked at their tax info.

Out of interest, what would be a socially acceptable reason to lookup someone's info?

Looking up colleagues' salary maybe?
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