Would an Alexa of Web Statistics Work?
2.0Ventures proposes a centralized website statistics aggregator. Basically, Alexa for web stats. I like the idea, it’d be a very useful tool, in some ways much more useful than Alexa. However, I think he glosses over the obstacles in the idea. Here’s one example: First, we have to convince the stats package developers to include a simple api for their collected data. And if it’s possible, convince them to output in the exact same way. This of course would be the biggest obstacle, and take some work. But it can be done with the right incentives. What incentives? The aggregator probably couldn’t afford to pay the web analytics companies to release the data. There would need to be some monetary benefit for the companies. Would it get them more customers? Would it please their customers in some way? I’m just not seeing yet what incentive they’d have to release that data. Also, do their customers want their data released? I really have no way to stop Alexa from estimating my traffic. Howev
