Wolfram Alpha vs. Google — Results Vary

wjousts writes "Technology Review has an article comparing various search results from Wolfram Alpha and Google. Results vary. For example, searching 'Microsoft Apple' in Alpha returns data comparing both companies stock prices, whereas Google top results are news stories mentioning both companies. However, when searching for '10 pounds kilograms,' Alpha rather unhelpfully assumes you want to multiply 10 pounds by 1 kilogram, whereas Google directs you to sites for metric conversions. Change the query to '10 pounds in kilograms' and both give you the result you'd expect (i.e. 4.536 kg)."

Comments

this just in

[Laebshade]

Karma be damned, but..

No one cares about a new search engine. Really, Google suits all my needs.

Re:this just in

[gailrob]

It is not a search engine but rather a factual answer database. It is quite impressive actually and I look forward to it's release as it will provide an awesome new resource for everyone. Especially students! Google - search for websites. Wolfram - search for answers.

Re:this just in

[eldavojohn]

Karma be damned, but..

No one cares about a new search engine. Really, Google suits all my needs.

I would claim that's a dangerous mentality. I was using Metacrawler until Google came along. Even though Google is included in Metacrawler, its simplicity and speed won me over. Is that to say no one can compete with Google? Not at all.

I used to dig holes with my hands which was painful and time consuming. When it became clear this wouldn't work, I discovered a spade did the job much better. And I used it for everything. Though one day I was putting up fences and lamented the width of my spade's blade ... the posts weren't sitting firmly. A man offered to lend me his post hole digger which did that specific task better. No, I wasn't using the post hole digger to dig a trench for a sewage line but adding it to my collection of tools made me more effective at my tasks--so long as I used it for what it was best at.

The hype machine has worked, I will try out Wolfram Alpha and see if it is better than Google or can replace some of the capabilities I use Google to accomplish.

Re:this just in

[swillden]

I RTFA and, even when searching for answers, Google mopped the floor with Wolfram Alpha

That's funny, I RTFA too, and I came to a completely different conclusion. I think perhaps we have different definitions of "answers".

The conclusion I drew is that if you're looking for technical/scientific data Alpha does a much better job. In particular, it brings together lots of relevant bits and pieces which may not exist on any single web site. Google will probably find it all for you, but you'll have to do more digging. On the other hand, if you're looking for news, commentary or opinion, Google is the much better choice.

I more frequently find myself looking for data, so I wouldn't be surprised if my usage tends to favor Alpha. Heck, as it is 95% of my usage of Google is to search for a Wikipedia article -- and often I'm looking for that to find links to tables of data. Your goals and search patterns may be different, so your usage may favor Google.

I suspect that Alpha is going to be a very useful tool within its domain, but I don't expect it to displace Google to any significant degree.

Re:this just in

[vux984]

Right, I'm a fanboy, it has nothing to do that no serious superior alternative is going to pop up within the foreseeable future.

Just before Google there wasn't anyone standing around saying, "Just you wait, any day now I predict a company is going to offer web search that blows yahoo and hotbot out of the water."

Any particular reason nobody couldn't improve on google? There are lots of big shortcomings in google.

When I don't want to buy something, but google a product for reviews etc I have to sift through piles of garbage 'price comparison sites', and sites with: "0 reviews... be the first to review it".

When I -do- want to buy something, I STILL don't want a pile of link-spam price comparison sites, mostly pointing to companies that won't ship to Canada anyway.

Google sucks for localized/regional or country specific information searches.

Googles image search could use significant improvements.

When I search for answers to technical questions (programming / troubleshooting / etc), I'll find a link to a question asked on some forum, with answers. If that doesn't help, I don't need the next 7 links all to be to other sites with the EXACT SAME question and answers. (Apparently a lot of forum sites spider each other and/or usenet for their content...) I don't need to see that. I also don't much need links to forums where the question was asked six months ago, and never answered.

And going off on a bit of a tangent... 'expertsexchange' (WFT? 'expert sex change'??) Someone should really properly spider that waste of space. Sure the information is there... but what the hell??? A question, 2 pages of 'obscured' answers, then four pages of advertising for expertsexchange to get answers... but keep scrolling, and there is the question again, now with the un-obscured answers, and 2 pages of bickering about how the stupid effing points should be awarded.

Sure the signal is there but the S/N ratio is through the roof.

For me, other sites have -already- supplanted google as superior ways to find certain types of information.

Wikipedia is for example is far more useful than google as a search tool to get information and links to relevant sites for a lot of topics. There's a reason an awful lot of top google hits simply take you to wikipedia... might as well cut out the middle man.

10 pounds kilograms

[Trevin]

Reminds me of when I was in France, and still having trouble understanding the spoken French language. I was talking to a guy who asked me, in translation, "Brothers, sisters, one, two, three?" It took me a while to figure out he wanted to know how many siblings I had. Dumbing down the question like that didn't help me understand him any better, it made it worse. Using correct French grammar and simply slowing it down would have been much more helpful.

I imagine Wolfram Alpha is like that.

Why are most examples side to side comparisons?

[AtomicJake]

Is Wolfram Alpha especially good in doing side to side comparisons (ex. from the article: "Microsoft Apple", "Stanford Harvard", "Utah Florida", "Utah Florida population")? Or why did the article test both engines with those queries?

I would have rather expected, complete questions that are nevertheless hard to answer (unless you know a source), such as:

1) "How many bull terriers are in the UK?"
Google: link to Bullterriers on Wikipedia and some dog clubs in the UK.
Wolfram: ???

2) "How many blind people live in the US?"
Google: first link to WikiAnsers (about 1 million, but without any references). Next links seem to be more serious, but difficult to get a real answer to that question (it depends on how you interprete "blind").
Wolfram: ???

3) "What is the color of a strawberry?"
Google: This confuses me, apparently it has many colors...
Wolfram: ???

4) Apparently we need to use a comparison question: "strawberry blackberry"
Google: I am getting hungry when I am following all those recipe links ...

 

explicit phrasing

[Tom]

Alpha rather unhelpfully assumes you want to multiply 10 pounds by 1 kilogram

Actually, while I agree that is unhelpful, I also don't like the other assumption. Maybe I'm already growing old, but I don't mind if people actually say what they mean instead of speaking or writing in some kind of shortcut-verbs-are-too-expensive-so-I-leave-them-out abbreviated style and leave it to the listener/reader to decypher whatever it could possibly be they mean.

So if you want 10 pounds in kilograms, what exactly is the trouble with actually writing those three (counting the space) additional characters?