Where does alexa pull its information from?

[tony84]

I have just asked Alexa for details on the nearest mortgage brokers. When I look on google, there is a mortgage broker on my street, one or 2 in the local village and then mine is probably about 5th-6th closest.

It did not show the the broker who works from home on my street nor mine/the ones in the same office block.

I cant imagine it generating much business, but I just thought I would check.

 

[WaveJumper]

She's obviously got her favourites ?

 

[fisicx]

There used to be a site called alexa.com that had a load of data for all sorts of sites. It was notoriously inaccurate. This is where Amazon got a lot of its data. And of course all the tracking data it has been collecting about your for the last umpteen years.

 

[WaveJumper]

I am guessing the next question is can you in anyway influence Alexa if you know its not picking you up

 

[tony84]

I just asked for mortgage brokers, not good ones

 

[Ian J]

I have just asked Alexa for details on the nearest mortgage brokers. When I look on google, there is a mortgage broker on my street, one or 2 in the local village and then mine is probably about 5th-6th closest.

It did not show the the broker who works from home on my street nor mine/the ones in the same office block.

I tried it out for factoring brokers and mine was the first one that she came up with. Like you I doubt whether it be of much use to me

 

[Paul Carmen]

Alexa uses Microsoft Bing as its search engine, so if the local brokers haven't setup a Bing Business listing and decent local citations, they probably won't show up in local Alexa results.

When doing local ranking work, Bing is next most important after a Google Business listing to establish solid local address based NAP (name, address, phone no) credentials.

 

[tony84]

Im on Bing, if I put my postcode in on bing I come up 3rd. Second is another firm in the office block and 1st is a lady who is a mortgage broker working from home on our street.

 

[LukeTalentTent]

I have to admit that since chatGPT has hit the scene.. I am heavily judging Alexa for its inability to answer simple questions. I know they provide a different service, but still..

 

[fisicx]

I have to admit that since chatGPT has hit the scene.. I am heavily judging Alexa for its inability to answer simple questions. I know they provide a different service, but still..

Alexa isn’t doing what Amazon hoped it would. The idea was you used the service for buying stuff. But most people just use it for the weather and music which doesn’t generate an income. Which means the service you get is going to get worse as it costs Amazon billions which they don’t want to pay.

ChatGPT will become increasing inaccurate unless billions are spent building a new data set. Calculations show the energy costs of doing this are enormous. Which means someone has to pay.

 

[Nico Albrecht]

Alexa isn’t doing what Amazon hoped it would. The idea was you used the service for buying stuff. But most people just use it for the weather and music which doesn’t generate an income. Which means the service you get is going to get worse as it costs Amazon billions which they don’t want to pay.

CIA might be paying the bills for Amazon to get spy devices in homes. According to my understanding, there appears to be a significant disagreement with the notion that Amazon would not collaborate with the CIA, as the two entities have a longstanding relationship. Given that the CIA's primary function is to collect intelligence, having surveillance devices in every home would be highly advantageous to them. This is not a novel concept, as the CIA engaged in unauthorized surveillance of American citizens during the Bush administration, as evidenced by public records and acknowledged by the US government in 2009.

It seems unlikely that Amazon would object to receiving funding from the CIA in order to place spy devices in every household and can run at a loss on paper in their books.

Sources:

• "Amazon has a long-standing relationship with the CIA." (The Intercept)
• The CIA's mission is to "collect, analyze, evaluate, and disseminate foreign intelligence." (CIA.gov)
• The CIA engaged in unauthorized surveillance of American citizens during the Bush administration. (The New York Times)

I doubt in the late 2010 onward the CIA would change its mission. They are in good company with Google and Apple.

Fun fact:

• Amazon on Wednesday named former National Security Agency director Keith Alexander to its board of directors.
• Alexander, a retired four-star Army general, served as NSA director from 2005 to 2014 and was commander of the U.S. Cyber Command from 2010 to 2014.

 

[DontAsk]

ChatGPT will become increasing inaccurate unless billions are spent building a new data set. Calculations show the energy costs of doing this are enormous. Which means someone has to pay.

ChatGPT-style search represents a 10x cost increase for Google, Microsoft

Google hints that an AI chatbot search engine will really cut into its profits.

arstechnica.com

 

[fisicx]

If you read the whole article it’s all about the cost. If bing was more popular then MS couldn’t afford it either.