Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Alexa Web Search Platform Released

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the do-that-make-you-api dept.

Philipp Lenssen writes "Amazon's Alexa is releasing their search index (the same that powers the Wayback Machine) to developers via their new Alexa Web Search Platform. The Alexa framework is not for the weak of heart -- expect to learn how to use their C API, and expect to pay micro-amounts for requests and CPU cycles used -- but it also seems to be more powerful than the rival APIs from Yahoo and Google."

8 of 63 comments (clear)

  1. Alexa? Nope. by Seth+Finklestein · · Score: 4, Informative

    Alexa is notorious for spyware. Use Ad-Aware to remove Alexa if you have Alexa installed. Programmers: I will boycott all Alexa-sponsored products and label them as spyware in turn if you use this "API."

    Google's APIs are better.

    --
    I'm not Seth Finkelstein. I still speak the truth.
  2. Re:Pay? by radical_dementia · · Score: 5, Informative

    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).

  3. Price by 42Penguins · · Score: 4, Informative

    From TFWS:
    $1 per CPU hour ($.50 for unused hours)
    $1 per GB/year
    $1 per 50GB processed
    $1 per GB downloaded
    and $1 for every 4000 user requests.

    This is just for search service, right?
    And how do these prices relate to similar services?

    1. Re:Price by mparaz · · Score: 3, Informative

      Google, Yahoo, and MSN APIs are free but they do the searching for you and they have caps. Since you are paying Alexa, you can use it as much as you can pay. And, this new service does not offer search on it on its own. The Alexa Search Platform gives you only archive access - you have to do indexing and search on your own.

  4. C not required (kinda) by ProfaneBaby · · Score: 4, Informative

    For those who prefer "other" languages, they provide an app that (true to unix best practices) uses stdin/stdout for communicating with other programs:

    The Data Retrieval API is written in C, so it may be natural for users to develop C applications against this API. However, the Platform features a utility named awsp_cat. This utility reads CIDs from stdin and writes the raw content to stdout. Users may develop applications in arbitrary programming languages to process the awsp_cat output.


    Perl developers would be able to wrap this into their existing codebase in no time, assuming they want to pay the fees.

    --
    Video Phone Blogs send video messages straight to the web.
  5. Data Value by trollable · · Score: 3, Informative

    Before arguing the price for a search, I would question the value of the data itself.
    What's your opinion about Alexa ranks? Reliable? IMHO, there is too few users of the Alexa toolbar. It is also quite biased (IE, Windows). So except maybe for the top 30,000 websites, I'm not sure about the reliability of the stats.

    --
    Million Dollar Screenshot
  6. Who is responsible for a security breach? by digitaldc · · Score: 4, Informative

    'Alexa will not be held responsible for the loss or theft of information in the event of a security breach.' from: http://websearch.alexa.com/docs/faqs.html#security

    Man, I would hate to see who or what is held responsible.

    --
    He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
  7. Re:What is the definition of spyware by T.Hobbes · · Score: 2, Informative

    Alexa
    - Tricks users into installing its software, or installs itself without permission
    - Actively tries to stop users from uninstalling it, forcing people to use a third-party app to remove it (Ad-Aware, etc.)
    - Tracks users

    The first two make it scumware, the last makes it spyware. Google toolbar does track users, but warns them before doing so and only installs when users want it installed.