Wolfram Alpha - As important as Google?

[Scottish Business Owner]

This story is all over the web today. Many people are saying this has the potential to trump Google.

Wolfram Alpha "as important as Google" - Web User News

So is it a Google killer?

 

[Acu-IT]

Dont think it will be.


Certainly i do believe google is a victim of it's own success and going backwards and as such is ripe for a google killer search engine to overtake it but apart from microsoft who would have the cash required for the medium/ long term fight? Then again even a small/medium attempt might be the kick in the butt google needs to get back on track.

Wolfram Alpha seems to be more of an information tool rather than a dedicated search engine of the type we are all used to. I would hazard a guess that most of the wiki type sites will be the ones with the most to lose or gain depending on how you look at it.

On the plus side it should help shake up some of those link directory websites that are absolutely no use to anyone but, always seem to hog the top rankings on google into having to show something more tangible to the end user than simply being overloaded by keywords and links.

But having said that it will only be as good as its algorythm is at filtering out the rubbish and at the moment that is still a guessing game.

 

[Boxby]

Per them, it will "compute" the answer. Its a computer, so I am guess that it will work on the basis of algorithms and basically mathematics and forumla.

The thing is, many questions in this world don't have a black or white answer.

So what's it going to do with all the "grey" questions & answers.

Funnily enough its come from the Physics deparment at Harvard - physics always has a right and wrong answer. Wonder what they would have produced if they'd have taken in some advice from the Sociology/Psycology/arts departments.

 

[Gordon N]

It appears to work in the same way that Ask (or Jeeves as it was once known) tried to work, ask a question rather than enter a search phrase. People are now fairly familiar with how to achieve the results for the search they require through the likes of Google. For Wolfram to be any competition to Google they will have to convince people to learn to search in a different way than they currently do - a big challenge I think you'll agree.

I don't think Google should lose too much sleep over this one!