Wolfram Alpha Buzz Continues to Grow
The buzz surrounding ‘answer-engine’ Wolfram Alpha continues to grow leading up to its late May release date. How is Wolfram Alpha different from Google search? In order to answer questions using Google’s search you would type in your topic and drill down into the documents or web pages on the results page that might contain the answer. On the other hand, Wolfram Alpha allows you to ask a question directly and serves up the answer right on the results page. For example, searching on “the population of Finland” would result in demographics information gathered by Wolfram Alpha from various data sources and aggregated together on the results page.
Even if Wolfram Alpha ends up failing it’s sure to have an influence on the future of search. Google has definitely taken note although I’m sure they’re not worried about Wolfram Alpha having a negative impact on their business. Rather than a Google killer, Wolfram Alpha is a different kind of search and may find a nice niche in academia.
For more information read ZDNet’s article entitled “Deep inside Wolfram Alpha”