Hacker News Reader

They bought it for data gathering and market/competitor research. I was with Amazon at the time. Was great for keeping track of what products were drawing most traction on eBay (Longaberger baskets and Beanie babies, says my vague memory)

I'm pretty sure they were interested in the company as a product.

Foresight? Or just picked Alexa because they happened to have the domain and it's a good brand name for this?

Good point. But then I wonder why they bought it in the first place.