Wolfram Alpha Search Engine: A Google Killer? Nope
May 23rd, 2009 by admin
To much publicized hype, the Wolfram Alpha search engine, the next “Google Killer” launched on May 18th. I spent some time today playing around with it and was left completely underwhelmed. It reminds me of the Segway launch in it’s failure to live up to the hype.
I tried some searches and found that anything that was not completely general was met with a “Wolfram|Alpha isn’t sure what to do with your input”. Sure, you search “Microsoft” and get a nice array of options but search something a bit more obscure like “Gateway computers” and I get the “Wolfram|Alpha isn’t sure what to do with your input.” Google gave me loads of links to the company website and information about the company. It goes downhill from there.
I followed a sample search on the Wolfram Alpha search engine. It was a search for “housing prices New York” which Wolfram interprets as “New York | median owner-occupied home value”.. .. the answer $148,700 in the year 2000. Access to old, irrelevant data isn’t going to get me excited. The same search on Google gave me links to relevant, current articles on the housing market in NY.
Modify the search a little to “housing prices New York City” and goes back “Wolfram|Alpha isn’t sure what to do with your input”. This search engine has to get A LOT better to be useful to the general population.
I’m sticking with Google for now.
Troy Deierling, RDCPro, ABRM, Realtor
EXIT Realty Deierling & Assoc.
Williamsburg, VA
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