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Those who are trying to reinvent data search are underestimating Google and the Web at its present form. The fact that a search on any famous film director or a

by mojuba 18y ago

Those who are trying to reinvent data search are underestimating Google and the Web at its present form. The fact that a search on any famous film director or actor returns IMDB, or the fact that "When was JFK shot?" (mentioned in another comment here) returns a highly relevant Wikipedia article, tells us that the Web has already adjusted itself to be the semantic Web, and most importantly, a simple and predictable one. In simple cases like I mentioned above I know what to expect from Google, because I know how it works and also the Web constantly fixes itself to be searched easily. So this is a simple, very democratic and predictable system we all use successfully. On the other hand, it is always hard to deal with systems that we have little knowledge about. I suspect WA is the "hard" case. So, what problem Wolfram is trying to solve? Anyone has any problems with Google?

aaronsw 18y ago
You can't do computation with those results. At the first level, this means you have to click a link and load a page. But it also means that you can't ask compound questions ("What films did Orson Welles make that star Ruth Warrick?"). And you can't use the answers in other programs thru an API.
- amichail 18y ago
  If the question is a commonly asked one, someone will build a service to answer it. And that person could also provide an API.
  - smhinsey 18y ago
    It seems like you're asking for something like what Wolfram has built.
    - amichail 18y ago
      Actually, what I'm describing already exists. It's the way the Web works today.
- mojuba 18y ago
  Just tried your query and got perfect results in Google, right at the top. And I'm yet to see how WA answers that question. I think it may be able to answer it, but only if it was designed to understand this particular kind of questions and if particular pieces of information were selected for inclusion in WA's database. WA, to my understanding is not entirely self-regulating like the Google/Web bundle and thus it will be difficult for WA to catch up. We'll see.
- rictic 18y ago
  That query on Freebase, ready to compose and consume as JSON: http://tinyurl.com/on79u3 http://tinyurl.com/on79u3
silentOpen 18y ago
The problem is one most people don't know they have, unfortunately. Google only lets you talk about crude keywords to find prebuilt data. If WA lives up to the hype, you should be able to formulate a hypothesis involving arbitrary supported datasets and have WA build you data tables and visualizations. Will most people realize the sorts of questions they can ask? Probably not. Do most SQL datasets get used to their fullest potential? Probably not. Imagine what it does for the curious student, journalist, or professional, though. Some things I'd like to see: 1. Percentage of population in African countries with HIV/AIDS over time. Regional, or demographically coded information would be interesting as well. I'd also like it sourced. I could go look this up somewhere... or I could just ask WA. 2. Fertility vs. per capita GDP for countries/regions in the world. This is not to mention all the historical event, chemical, physical, etc. data. Imagine NYT data visualizations built on WA data. Private data sets that people slice and dice with WA and then sell specific visualizations, etc. It's a problem we don't know we have. Success will critically depend on flexibility, ease of use, and accurate and broad data sets.
- mojuba 18y ago
  http://www.google.com/search?q=Fertility+vs.+per+capita+GDP+for+countries http://www.google.com/search?q=Fertility+vs.+per+capita+GDP+... You can click on the first link - your answers are there. Notice that the two examples you gave belong to a fairly narrow field - statistics, something that seems to be the trickiest to collect in more or less structured form. But try it yourself, you'll see how easy it is to find virtually anything nowadays. In most cases there's a good chance someone in the world thought about something you are interested in and has put it out on the Net already. If you are the first to ask a question, then I doubt WA will give you useful results either.
  - jpd 18y ago
    The results for "Fertility vs. per capita GDP for continents" is significantly less useful though. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=Fertility+vs.+per+capita+GDP+for+continents&btnG=Search http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=Fertil...
alain94040 18y ago
underestimating Google? I place Google pretty high up on the scale of having smart people. Really high. Like #2. Actually, the only people that can beat extremely bright engineers at this game are mathematicians. That's what Wolfram does (remember, Mathematica?). The complexity that mathematicians can compute is at least an order higher than engineers. Think of Linus vs. grandma struggling with 3 lines of HTML. The same gap is between the brightest of engineers and a good mathematician. So that's why I place Wolfram #1 and Google #2, for that particular space (computation). But if you are a bright engineer and never got exposed to good mathematicians, you may just not even be aware that there is all this realm of knowledge above your head.

by mojuba 18y ago

aaronsw 18y ago

You can't do computation with those results. At the first level, this means you have to click a link and load a page. But it also means that you can't ask compound questions ("What films did Orson Welles make that star Ruth Warrick?"). And you can't use the answers in other programs thru an API.

amichail 18y ago
If the question is a commonly asked one, someone will build a service to answer it. And that person could also provide an API.
- smhinsey 18y ago
  It seems like you're asking for something like what Wolfram has built.
  - amichail 18y ago
    Actually, what I'm describing already exists. It's the way the Web works today.
mojuba 18y ago
Just tried your query and got perfect results in Google, right at the top. And I'm yet to see how WA answers that question. I think it may be able to answer it, but only if it was designed to understand this particular kind of questions and if particular pieces of information were selected for inclusion in WA's database. WA, to my understanding is not entirely self-regulating like the Google/Web bundle and thus it will be difficult for WA to catch up. We'll see.
rictic 18y ago
That query on Freebase, ready to compose and consume as JSON: http://tinyurl.com/on79u3 http://tinyurl.com/on79u3

silentOpen 18y ago

The problem is one most people don't know they have, unfortunately. Google only lets you talk about crude keywords to find prebuilt data. If WA lives up to the hype, you should be able to formulate a hypothesis involving arbitrary supported datasets and have WA build you data tables and visualizations. Will most people realize the sorts of questions they can ask? Probably not. Do most SQL datasets get used to their fullest potential? Probably not. Imagine what it does for the curious student, journalist, or professional, though. Some things I'd like to see: 1. Percentage of population in African countries with HIV/AIDS over time. Regional, or demographically coded information would be interesting as well. I'd also like it sourced. I could go look this up somewhere... or I could just ask WA. 2. Fertility vs. per capita GDP for countries/regions in the world. This is not to mention all the historical event, chemical, physical, etc. data. Imagine NYT data visualizations built on WA data. Private data sets that people slice and dice with WA and then sell specific visualizations, etc. It's a problem we don't know we have. Success will critically depend on flexibility, ease of use, and accurate and broad data sets.

mojuba 18y ago
http://www.google.com/search?q=Fertility+vs.+per+capita+GDP+for+countries http://www.google.com/search?q=Fertility+vs.+per+capita+GDP+... You can click on the first link - your answers are there. Notice that the two examples you gave belong to a fairly narrow field - statistics, something that seems to be the trickiest to collect in more or less structured form. But try it yourself, you'll see how easy it is to find virtually anything nowadays. In most cases there's a good chance someone in the world thought about something you are interested in and has put it out on the Net already. If you are the first to ask a question, then I doubt WA will give you useful results either.
- jpd 18y ago
  The results for "Fertility vs. per capita GDP for continents" is significantly less useful though. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=Fertility+vs.+per+capita+GDP+for+continents&btnG=Search http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=Fertil...

alain94040 18y ago

underestimating Google? I place Google pretty high up on the scale of having smart people. Really high. Like #2. Actually, the only people that can beat extremely bright engineers at this game are mathematicians. That's what Wolfram does (remember, Mathematica?). The complexity that mathematicians can compute is at least an order higher than engineers. Think of Linus vs. grandma struggling with 3 lines of HTML. The same gap is between the brightest of engineers and a good mathematician. So that's why I place Wolfram #1 and Google #2, for that particular space (computation). But if you are a bright engineer and never got exposed to good mathematicians, you may just not even be aware that there is all this realm of knowledge above your head.