
What happens when VCs believe Alexa numbers - farmer
http://earlystagevc.typepad.com/earlystagevc/2007/03/web_20.html
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acgourley
The title seems to imply the content of the post is incorrect because of the
Alexa numbers, but the Alexa numbers are not really relied upon as a strong
premise. (Actually, there isn't really a strong premise, he just sort of
asserts his opinion)

Anyway, that doesn't mean he's totally wrong either. Although I admit there is
still space in the "long tail" for more new web apps, it will be difficult to
keep making web apps once every site has to battle existing players.
Google/Yahoo/Microsoft/Cisco won't prop up the industry with constant
acquisitions of unprofitable companies forever.

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sethjohn
Whaddayaknow, maybe Alexa is the problem! Compete.com shows exactly the
opposite trends with increasing 2007 traffic to all the 2.0 sites mentioned.
(<http://snapshot.compete.com/techcrunch.com+technorati.com+gigaom.com+)>

Is there any consensus on which of these sites (Alexa or Compete) is more
reliable? Or at least...less unreliable?

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eli
I don't know much about Compete, but Alexa stinks. It's a small, self-selected
group of users that in no way represents the Internet at large.

I'm not the only one who thinks so:
<http://franticindustries.com/blog/2006/12/18/why-alexa-sucks/>

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jcwentz
Valleywag wrote about how he was fooled by bad Alexa data:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=5233>

