In the years to come, will this month be declared the month that forever changed the face of Internet search engines? There have been at least two significant launches that I have read about. Based on sophisticated algorithms, these two new search engines promise more “intelligent” search results.
First, there is Wolfram Alpha, which I wrote about before (here) and has gone live. For fun, try this: “What is the population of California, USA?” The answer is decidedly more easy to read than your usual Google answer, spewing out lines of text. Wolfram Alpha is definitely not perfect, but if it catches on and is able to “learn” over time as well as dig deep into the collective “intelligence” (as it promises), you can clearly see why this type of approach is of interest.
Now, Microsoft has gone badda bling, badda BING — or at least, coming soon. Pre-launced by CEO Balmer last night, apparently, bing will have a similar type of “logical” and easy-to-read outputs as Wolfram Alpha. Per the LA Times, “Rather than introducing a revolutionary approach to presenting information, Bing appears to stitch together its own versions of the Web’s most popular planning and decision tools — think Expedia for travel, Yelp for restaurants, Amazon for shopping.”
Watch this space, eh!
