A few weeks ago, I reported on the Portland Start-up Index, a ranking of Portland-area startups compiled by Techvibes, based on the average of Alexa and Compete rankings for each Web site. At that time, there were fewer than 30 sites listed on the index. And I noted it was a bit “apples and oranges,” but interesting nonetheless.
Well, apparently, things change quickly around here.
Techvibes has released their first update to the index. And some interesting things have happened.
Not only has the index grown to 40 sites, but now, the top position—formerly held by Portland-based media-widget-wonders SplashCast (#2)—has been soundly claimed by Discogs (#1), a community-built discography engine that is working to categorize artists, labels, and their recordings. Perhaps most interesting about this change is that Discogs’ combined average (4,648) is nearly 50,000 points higher than SplashCast’s (53,642).
Other new entries I noticed (when the index updated, the original list became inaccessible) include Grabb.it (#10), fmyi (#18), Goboz (#20), and Free Range (#27).
And because it has become clear that—without a snapshot of the list today—we’ll be unable to compare the next rev to the previous one, the entire list is included, below. (For actual Alexa and Compete numbers associated with the rankings, please visit Techvibes. They did the research and rightly deserve the traffic. I’m simply republishing to save the information.)
- Discogs
- Splashcast
- Sandy
- MyOpenID
- Earth Class Mail
- Cliq
- Gone Raw
- Stikkit
- NetworthIQ
- Grabbit
- Attensa
- KnitMap
- Walker Tracker
- Pibb
- UrbanDrinks
- Iovation
- GadgetTrak
- fmyi
- Imindi
- Goboz
- Picktastic
- Art Face Off
- Box Populi
- Pheedo
- ChoiceA
- Lunarr
- FreeRange
- Kumquat
- Kryptiq
- GoSeeTell
- Avnera
- Techchex
- Lumeno.us
- Workplace2go
- Jama Software
- MomHub
- Lightfleet
- YourList
- Cendix
- IDP Solutions
Being the astute reader you are, you’ll likely notice a few missing.
For the second time around, Portland’s wiki-based Web-site-information site, AboutUs, remains conspicuously absent from the list. As does the highly recognized, funded, and awarded Jive Software.
It will be interesting to see the shuffling that occurs once those sites are added.
And, again, the arguments will likely surface about this being a rather superficial means of assessing impact in the market. And how it is an unfair comparison among widget-based tools and Web-site-based tools.
That’s true. But it is an available—and somewhat objective—metric. And it does provide a reasonable indicator of Web traffic from the user population that has download either of the tracking toolbars.
Uh oh. You see it coming don’t you? Oh, all right. I can’t keep anything from you.
If you think that the Alexa and Compete rankings are misleading metrics, what metrics would you propose we use to rank the Portland-area startups? (And perhaps, more importantly: Do rankings even matter?)
If we can answer those questions, then maybe, just maybe, the Silicon Florist could publish an index that provides a clearer picture. Maybe. If you want.