[UPDATE]Wolfram Alpha: A wiki/google killer? FINALLY OPENED TO PUBLIC

What: A search engine question query website
Founded: Champaign, IL

It supposedly takes queries that answers directly to factual information rather than a index of web pages or documents. The search engine is built on Mathematica, which is an advanced calculating tool used much in the engineering industry. It claims it uses complex algorithms and heuristics that determine results.

I suppose this is a different approach for search by not using page rank. I sometimes find it annoying how the first result of some searches is from wikipedia, which you can easily check yourself.

What do you guys think? It hasn't been released yet, but will be later this month (May).

http://www.wolframalpha.com/

There is some hype behind it, but it is expected not to be a google killer. Probably a better contender would be an alternative research engine?

When it comes to factual information, I expect Wolfram Alpha will be a heavy hitter. However, I suspect it will have a lot of weaknesses, and won't really reach Google/Wiki levels of popularity.

Not all kinds of information can just be tabulated to be drawn upon by algorithms and heuristics. Of course, Mathematica works because when you want an equation integrated, or derived, or whatever, there is always a right answer. Searches pertaining to science, math, etc will probably be very accurate on Alpha.

However, for subjective things like current events, parts of history, etc, can't be effectively evaluated by a program. That's why it is probably better to rely on other people's endorsement of certain sites via links.

BTW, wikipedia is a common first-hit because each page has a RIDICULOUS amount of incoming links, mostly from other wiki pages.

Let's say that Wolfman Alpha has the potential to be the best search engine created to date. How would it go about getting people to use it? Just because it may be better, humans are creatures of habit and therefore will continue to use Wiki/Google. Is the search engine relying on word of mouth or other viral marketing techniques? You need to start with someone to get the information cascade going. They could do it like the language game we played in class, where they strike deals with internet browsers or PC makers to set the home pages to Wolfman Alpha. If you "force" people to use the new search engine, and they become accustomed to it, then they can spread the usage down the line in their respective social networks.

I believe when the system is reliable and better in searching, then I believe it will gain the popularity anyway.

Who would ever thought about the Google with such huge success anyway? Also, as we learned in the class, social distance is smaller than ever and information is flooding through the web as well. When the few people start to using the new search engine and find out it is effective, then the information will flood though the social networks such as my space, facebook, and twitter.

Wolfram Alpha has a couple of factors that make it's future popularity more likely. First of all, it is getting media attention. This is a necessary spark to get people to try the service and even start an information cascade. Secondly, people are used to searching at google.com, but they even more used to using normal language. If WolframAlpha lives up to the hype, it won't reach Google's level (Google as a company is more than search now), but Google might feel threatened or impressed enough to buy it.

I agree with Andrew, even if Wolfram Alpha is superior in every way, it will still be a challenge to contest Google's 70+% market share (source: http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2009/05/07/google-another-month-another-market-share-gain/). In fact, the prerequisite for any search engine to begin to challenge Google is a superior product! This is going to be very difficult to achieve considering most people find pretty good links for the most obscure things within the first couple of pages from Google. But this doesn't mean Wolfram Alpha can't serve as a stable and effective search engine in a niche market. Using the diffusion of innovations in networks, this can be done by first creating a good product (which we'll find out if they did soon enough), and positioning their product well with clever marketing to start a cascade of users. I can easily see Alpha on the same level of market share as MSN.com and at worst, Ask.com, within a couple of years.

I think that the two search engines will coexist in the internet search market segment because they are built for two different tasks. Google is designed for searching websites, while Alpha is made to answer questions. I think that users will go to the respective search engines based upon what they are trying to find. Who knows how this will actually work out though...

Although the search engine is not officially up yet, you can actually start inputting questions through this link:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i

Here's a few queries I've tried:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=what+is+the+meaning+of+life%3F

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=social+networking

Pretty cool how it actually gives factual information about words rather than just a web list of articles. It's probably the latest web toy to play around with.

From the information cascade effect, I've been noticing on a lot of tech forums that people are jumping excited over this new thing.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/

Website is fully functional. It'll be interesting to see what happens from here on out.

although this website does not display website links like traditional search engines, i am sure it employs a variation of the PageRank algorithm to determine which website's farmed data high a greater weight compared to another site's.

for example, if i enter plasma as a search query, i get some results on the material properties and description of plasma.

since this information is actually farmed from a group of websites on the internet, and there may be medical websites on properties of blood plasma, physics websites on the properties of other forms of plasma, and gaming sites that talks about fictional plasma weaponary and their effectiveness in the game, i am cetrain that the last site will be given less or no weight.

so it would be interesting to know what sort of criteria they use to value the quality of information.