Quantcast was the first web traffic analytics company that allowed users to download their top 1,000,000 websites. Recently Alexa followed suit, giving away a daily updated index of their top 1,000,000 websites.

Such lists should be taken with a grain of salt, but at free one can't complain about the price. As time passes free and good enough is going to force those selling tools and information to offer something that has a sustainable advantage over free.

At the same time...

• the sea of information will become increasingly hard to navigate, increasing the value of filters (particularly those built around a shared perspective or bias)
• hyped up salesmen will be able to build many business models out of selling such recycled information to the uninitiated, forcing others who sell information to add even more differentiators between themselves and the competition

Thanks to Jamey for the Alexa tip. :)