The Next Google Killer?

Wolfram Alpha

 

So when is the last time you couldn’t figure out an answer to a question? Most of us would go straight to Google and type in our question and browse the results until we find an appropriate answer. The only problem with this, is that most of time we would have to sift through all the results, some of them that have nothing to do with question to find the correct answer. This process might become a lot easier with the release of Wolfram Alpha.

Wolfram Alpha is the next “Google Killer” according to a few journalists. From what I have read it might be the next Wikipedia killer. Wolfram Alpha is sort of like a Google/Wikipedia hybrid. Unlike Google who returns answers based on keywords, Wolfram will actual compute your question to find an appropriate answer. For example, when I search for “The average amount of mile driven by an American from 2003-2008” Google comes up with, 2,690 results, and the first result doesn’t have anything to do with driving. David Berkowitz did the same thing by searching “average rainfall Belize 2003-2008 January February march,” , and he came up with multiple results that did not have to do with anything regarding his question.

So you are probably asking how does Wolfram work? According to Nova Spivack’s (CEO of Twine) interview with Stephen Wolfram (Wolfram Alpha’s founder) Wolfram uses “built-in models of fields of knowledge, complete with data and algorithms, that represent real-world knowledge”. I am pretty sure they also use magic and Stephen Hawking.

So here is the big question. Will Wolfram Alpha actually be a “Google Killer”? In my opinion NO (this is coming from someone who hasn’t played with it yet). I feel that Google is so engulfed into our culture that it will take a major cultural change to over throw Google from the “Throne of Search”. Will Wolfram give Google a run for their money? I think so! Unlike most of the (semantic) Search Engines Wolfram actually answer the questions of providing better search to its users. But unlike Search Engines Wolfram cannot answer general or vague questions like “how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop?” or “What kind of car should I buy”? I feel that Wolfram will bring a new style of search that will answer direct question more appropriately (something the Search Engines have yet to figure out). Hopefully this will drive more innovation within the Search community, which will give us a better Internet experience.