Drat. Wolfram Alpha May Not Be Revolutionary
May 22, 2009
The Guardian really wants to hobble the Google. When I lived in Brazil as a child, I recall my picking up a certain small lizard. The tail would break off and the lizard would scamper to safety. A friend of the family who was a surgeon told me that some lizards could regrow their tails. The Guardian grabs the GOOG’s tail, and it breaks off, leaving Googzilla free to do whatever Googzillas enjoy doing.
You can see this approach in the Guardian’s story “Where Does Wolfram Alpha Get Its Information?” by Bobbie Johnson here. The angle is to write about Wolfram Alpha, the current Google challenger. Bobbie Johnson said:
Some of the references come, Google-style, from ordinary websites but most of the information is drawn from the texts and databases that are pulled into Mathematica, which performs most of the numerical calculations. This means Alpha is strong on science and maths but struggles with some other fact-based disciplines (such as history) and seems nonplussed by social sciences and popular culture. There are plenty of queries that result in the weary (and wearying) refrain of “Wolfram Alpha isn’t sure what to do with your input”. However, the search engine is not just pulling information from academic data: it has its fair share of oddball references too – injected by the site’s staff in an attempt to draw a smile from users and build up early-adopter credibility.
In this passage, I can hear the sigh of disappointment that Wolfram Alpha wasn’t – well – a Google killer. Bobbie Johnson concluded:
In the end, that’s not necessarily much different or better than the information returned from a search on Google or Wikipedia. Perhaps Wolfram Alpha isn’t quite so revolutionary after all.
The Guardian will be on the look out for the next potential Google killer. Maybe Microsoft’s Bing Kumo will be the next knight in the lists. I am betting on the Google. The Guardian has another tail in its hands I believe.
Stephen Arnold, May 22, 2009
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