Alexa to Offer Index, Storage and Processing Power API
John Battelle got the scoop on the Alexa API story, and it's a BIG ONE for the search industry... I think the effect will be similar to the one that blogs had on main stream media. At the very least it lowers the barrier of entry on creating a solid search mashup based on an index of 5 billion pages. (Gigablast offers its index too, though not with such flexibility for development.)

Here's Alexa Web Search Platform beta (think tinker toys or legos for developers who want to make their own search engine-based business or service)

Here, in Battelle's words, is what's happening:

"In short, Alexa, an Amazon-owned search company started by Bruce Gilliat and Brewster Kahle (and the spider that fuels the Internet Archive), is going to offer its index up to anyone who wants it (details are not up yet, but soon). Alexa has about 5 billion documents in its index - about 100 terabytes of data."

"Anyone can also use Alexa's servers and processing power to mine its index to discover things - perhaps, to outsource the crawl needed to create a vertical search engine, for example. Or maybe to build new kinds of search engines entirely, or ...well, whatever creative folks can dream up. And then, anyone can run that new service on Alexa's (er...Amazon's) platform, should they wish."

"The fees? One dollar per CPU hour consumed. $1 per gig of storage used. $1 per 50 gigs of data processed. $1 per gig of data uploaded (if you are putting your new service up on their platform)."

"In other words, Alexa and Amazon are turning the index inside out, and offering it as a web service that anyone can mashup to their hearts content. Entrepreneurs can use Alexa's crawl, Alexa's processors, Alexa's server farm....the whole nine yards."

Can I get a "HOLY CRAP!!!" from y'all?

Battelle's excited, but asks "Will this be like A9, a groundbreaking development that fails to get traction with a wider audience? Or might this just start something?"

Update:
Danny Sullivan's underwhelmed.

To balance my exuberance I'm going to pull some of Sullivan's quotes:

"But spending money to lease search services? That's a remnant from the days before search ads, when search engines wanted to be paid for storage and processor time. Search ads made the leasing services model go away."

"It also has to be said that the Alexa pitch would be a heck of a lot stronger if Alexa itself actually used its own web index. But it doesn't. Want to search the web with Alexa? Alexa depends on Google to give it a reach well beyond the 4 billion pages that Alexa has gathered."

"Like John, I've not really talked with a ton of developers, and perhaps that might shape my view to be more positive. At the moment, I definitely don't see it as a hugely groundbreaking move that will reshape web search forever, any more than Amazon's A9 Open Search has yet to do. If you want that groundbreaking move, you have to go back to when the Google API was first offered years ago. This is just an extension of that."

More Links:
Bezos Turns Amazon.com Search Unit Loose (forbes)
Roll Your Own Google (wired)
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |