John Battelle on Alexa

The first place I read about the new Amazon search play was on John Battelle's Searchblog: Alexa (Make that Amazon) Looks to Change the Game

Every so often an idea comes along that has the potential to change the game. When it does, you find yourself saying - 'Sheesh, of course that was going to happen. Why didn't I predict it?' Well, I didn't predict this happening, but here it is, happening anyway.

Sounds exciting. And this follow up resonates with the Google Map API fan in me:

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.

Unlike Google's map API, Alexa is for paying customers only. Hobbyists like me (or a search tinkerer hobbyist) won't be taking up this offer. It is clearly a play for more serious inventors.

Batelle know so much more about the search market – that's why I read his blog – so if he's uncertain about what it means, I'm totally without a clue. Yet, this does sounds like a game changer. For a price, anyone with a business plan and some capital can jump in the custom search game. A very large barrier just got a lot lower. How much lower? What do I know? I get Google does. This is the ground they stand on that may be shifting.