Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Wolfram Alpha is no Google Killer

Wolfram Alpha reminds me of other flirtatious "Google killers" from the past couple of years: Powerset, Freebase and Cuil.

I'll set the stage: you are out on the town at a very trendy club and you mozy on up to the bar. You feel flush and entitled and order a high end vodka for your dirty martini (people always tell you that the olive juice kills the premium taste, but what do you care, this is who you are). When you turn back to take in the crowd (and let them take you in) guess who walks up? Wait for it...wait for it...

That's right...Wolfram Alpha! You've been hearing all kinds of stories about WA for weeks now. You think to yourself, "Holy shit! I'm gonna get a peek at this before the masses do!" And so you dive on into the experience and are quickly comforted by being able to find out such things as:
  • being able to quickly divide the population of Singapore by the population of Hong Kong and get results for the year 2004 and 2007
  • punching in your birthdate and learning that you are over 14,000 days old!
  • type in Spokane and learn that it has an elevation of 1873 feet
You keep going and going and going, it sucks you in. This is sooooo cool. At the end of the night you lean in, attempt a kiss on the lips, but just get a cheek, go home and tuck yourself in.

THEN guess what happens?

You wake up, turn on your computer and go right back to using Google.

Wolfram Alpha is good for a twenty minute quicky...but it'll whither away just like the others.

My money is still on Twitter...