The Wolfram Alpha search engine is one of the most sophisticated search engines I have ever seen. It is a lot more advanced than Google in doing calculations and solving problems, but it is not as appealing when it comes to searching for websites. The problem is that Wolfram Alpha does not have mainstream appeal, yet the company has still decided to charge $50 for their iPhone application.
The Wolfram Alpha iPhone application plugs into the API of the search engine directly and delivers results at a fast pace. This application seems extremely useful to a financial analyst but not very common for a typical consumer especially considering the price.
When I went directly to the Wolfram Alpha website on the Safari browser on the iPhone, it turns out that the user interface was quite friendly too. Below is a screenshot of what the website looks like on the web browser. Once I find out what the main difference is between the iPhone app and the web version, then I’ll update this post. If you download the app, leave a comment. After the jump is a couple of screenshots of the web version of WolframAlpha. (more…)
Stephen Wolfram made an announcement today giving an update about his search engine. For those of you that do not know about Wolfram Alpha, it is one of the most sophisticated search engines that exist today.
It can calculate complex math problems and can even use A.I. to output anything related to a keyword search. Wolfram Alpha originally launched back in May.
Over the summer Wolfram Alpha classified over 54,000 bugs and suggestions and fixed what was not working in the past. The company even launched a partnership with Microsoft to license technology over to Bing.com.
Wolfram Alpha’s search technology licensing to Bing.com will also be beneficial for Yahoo! users. Bing.com will be powering Yahoo!’s search technology for at least 10 years.
I haven’t talked about Wolfram Alpha much in the past because I had not quite looked into it until recently. But after watching the demo video, I was quite impressed and could see myself using it for math purposes.
Wolfram Alpha is named after the founder Stephen Wolfram. The search engine is able to input information that is typed in by the user and use A.I. to output anything related to that keyword. You could type in a full geometry problem and it would output the solution and give you graphs. I’m excited to see the project evolve.
From a venture capital standpoint, the first thing you would ask yourself is how would this make money. Like every other search engine, the easiest way to monetize is through advertising. StartupMeme caught an advertisement by Lenovo appearing on the side (picture above).
Wolfram Alpha is ready to accept sponsored advertisements right away even the project is still being developed. If you aren’t able to find search results within Wolfram, the website encourages you to search the web via Google.
