My first test and conclusions about WolframAlpha

I was already impressed by the pre-launch screencast introducing WolframAlpha and now that it is live I did a few tests. My conclusion is that it is definitely a new way of finding accurate statistical and computational answers. WolframAlpha seems to pull very relevant data from good sources and therefore enables users to enter questions even in the form of verbal description of comparisons for different variables, which is really a unique way of getting to these infos and needed much more search efforts and time AND manual computational work to get to the same results before... However WolframAlpha is not a real substitution for google or other search engines. google will still make the world's ever growing number of websites more accessible and easier to search and Wikipedia will still provide a knowledge compendium of definitions and facts. If people learn how to use different search engines for different kind of searches and understand where certain engines have their strength, they will nicely co-exist in the future. WolframAlpha has set a new standard in computing statistical and logical data based on the descriptive input of written words and questions and is a big milestone in the race to make human knowledge and intelligence computational!

Also WolframAlpha is the perfect tool for Q&A knowledge communities like hiogi or Yahoo Clever that help other people who are traveling or who are not so familiar with online search by searching and aggregating good answers.

Here are a few of my first test searches and I am sure in a few months I will use WolframAlpha also on a day-to-day basis as I do it with google or Wikipedia today:

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What is the average water consumption of a German household?
No results...
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What is the deepest part of the ocean?
highest | 7235 m (4.496 mi) (Southern Ocean)
lowest | 10 924 m (6.788 mi) (Pacific Ocean)

I also found the sources really interesting and some are new to me so I am glad that I get all the combined results now from wolframalpha:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/
http://encarta.msn.com/media_461547746/The_World%27s_Oceans_and_Seas.html
http://www.iode.org/index.php?Itemid=65&id=24&option=com_content&task=view
http://www.wikipedia.org/
http://www.thew2o.net/
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I really liked this one which someone twittered :-) How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?
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red + green

Qualitätsfaktor bei google

Je relevanter die anzeige,desto höher der QF. Für die,die es noch nicht wussten: es zählt nicht nur das gebot für die position der anzeige.

Google erklärt jumpstart auf der OMD

Ich werde verrückt. Das beispiel zeigt allem ernstes klickpreise zwischen 70 cent und 1.30 euro. Wer soll sich das denn leisten können? So viel zahlen wir nicht mal per lead. ;) für start ups ist google adwords eher ineffizient.

Eröffnung der O2 world in berlin

Wowi und die chefs von O2 und anschütz schneiden das band durch bevor eine eher über kandidelte kunst vorstellung begann

Local search made very easy

During the TechCrunch event I got to talk to Jack DeNeut, who is currently working on www.nelso.com. Looks like a cool local search and I keep my fingers crossed. Try it and let me know, what you think.

Here is Nelso in German, however it is not all localized yet.