5 ms·

Wolfram Alpha: The Wikipedia Killer

17 points by darwinw 17y ago

zimbabwe 17y ago
life expectancy 40 year old male UK GOOG YHOO nathan name president of nigeria 2004 weather seattle christmas day 2008 microsoft ethnic groups nigeria With the exception of Microsoft, none of these are questions I'd see myself typing into Wikipedia. Some of these might have tangential information available on Wiki, but this is not Wikipedia's meat and bones. Wolfram Alpha is not going to kill anything. It provides a new kind of service, and if it becomes popular the only deaths will be of those services that offer very limited value to begin with.
- inerte 17y ago
  The Nigeria ones are actually a good candidate to find on Wikipedia articles. I recently thought about moving to Norway and wondered how's the temperature there, if they speak english, and googled for "wikipedia norway". Country pages are a good source of that kind of information. Anyway, the others aren't really good, since they're time-based, and except for major stuff (like the political history), Wikipedia isn't the right place to look. But I disgress and agree, Wolfram isn't killing anything.
- gyeh 17y ago
  Try Wikipedia searches using Google: "<query> site:en.wikipedia.org" It enhances the Wikipedia experience to a whole new level.
- Scriptor 17y ago
  I tried "ethnic groups nigeria". Wolfram Alpha gave me a |-delimited string of them, Wikipedia gave me a much more comprehensive list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Ethnic_groups_in_Nigeria http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Ethnic_groups_in_Niger...) and each one is a hyperlink. Perhaps the author prefers to use Wikipedia for "facts and trivia", but I find myself enjoying the site for providing a detailed and thorough introduction to almost every non-trivial topic.
  - zimbabwe 17y ago
    That's what Wikipedia's good for. It's not nearly as good at what Wolfram is trying to do, which is to process and comprehend complicated data analysis. They're two entirely separate things.
tsally 17y ago
A lot of the mathematical proofs and descriptions of algorithms on Wikipedia are surprisingly well written. You're telling me Wolfram Alpha can replace that? In fact, Wikipedia is a completely different type of service.
- nx 17y ago
  I really want to believe that, but we'll have to check later on. I'd like to see the OS community triumphing over commercial solutions.
russell 17y ago
XXX is the YYY killer is pretty much guaranteed to be wrong, esp. if YYY is good and thriving. (Hardware notwithstanding.)
- harpastum 17y ago
  As much as I don't think WA is a Wikipedia killer, I think that simply writing off emerging technologies that are attempting to replace the status quo is naive at best. If you're commenting on the actual phrasing of the article title, rather than the sentiment behind it, you're probably right. But I would push that assertion even farther: Link-bait article titles are 'pretty much guaranteed' to contain information that's either incorrect or obvious.
  - russell 17y ago
    Right. I was going after link bait titles as a guarantee of little content. The true killers are usually not apparent in the early stages. Was it obvious that Google was the AltaVista killer? AltaVista had the brand name, a big parent company, and lots of smart people. WA is interesting on its own without all the "killer" blogs.
    - aswanson 17y ago
      I simply refuse to click on, and thus reward, obviously sensational idiotic linkbait titles. Hopefully, this behaviour spreads and will be the killer for the mass of them.
nimbix 17y ago
I don't see WA as a Wikipedia killer. It's more like a working version of Wikipedia articles: read about a concept on Wikipedia, then try it out in practice using WA. I think they complement each other very nicely!
- nimbix 17y ago
  UPDATE: threw together a simple mock-up of what WoframAlpha inside Wikipedia might look like: http://bit.ly/3PHMD http://bit.ly/3PHMD The content and position of a WolframAlpha block would be selected by article authors. Considering how much space it eats up, it probably wouldn't be expanded by default, but it certainly needs to appear inline. If there was just a link to this simulation in the footer section it would be almost invisible. Also, another shameless act of self-promotion: http://bit.ly/FT0qj http://bit.ly/FT0qj (full blog post)
patcito 17y ago
Wikipedia is one of the main source of data for Wolfram Alpha, so killing Wikipedia would make Wolfram suck if not die.
- stcredzero 17y ago
  I doubt if the loss of Wikipedia would affect Wolfram Alpha. they'd just license the information.
travisjeffery 17y ago
Not only are the different things but it will take either a lot more time or a lot more effort before Wolfram Alpha can compete with the amount of information that Wikipedia has.
cellis 17y ago
If you read "%s Killer" anywhere on a news site, you can safely ignore it.
- jimbokun 17y ago
  Agreed that Wolfram Alpha will not kill Wikipedia, but it is unfortunate that some interesting points are associated with such a link-bait title. Using FaceBook for people searches, Twitter for "what are people saying right now" searches, and Wolfram Alpha for CIA World FactBook searches does demonstrate the potential for vertical search services to thrive in the shadow of Google. If services that are better than Google for some narrow kind of search continue to proliferate, collectively they could become a competitive threat to Google at some point. Or at least threaten some potential Google growth opportunities. I though Dare made this point rather well, and I think it is worth further discussion.
csomar 17y ago
It's the first time i hear about the site: It's great and promising. however if i happen to use it a lot in the future (and may be several times a day) it'll not replace Google. This is not exactly an engine, it's a precious scientific tool edit: i looked for Google and this showed me the last trade in our local currecncy (DT)!! this mean they have care about visitors from all over the world
darkxanthos 17y ago
I'm getting very tired of the "Sorry, Wolfram Alpha is temporarily unavailable. Please try again." or "I'm sorry Dave". Regardless of whether or not it's "released". It is "released" and I'll be avoiding it until it's less frustrating to use.
erlanger 17y ago
No, not even remotely: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=ruy+lopez http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=ruy+lopez http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_Lopez http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_Lopez

17 points by darwinw 17y ago

life expectancy 40 year old male UK GOOG YHOO nathan name president of nigeria 2004 weather seattle christmas day 2008 microsoft ethnic groups nigeria With the exception of Microsoft, none of these are questions I'd see myself typing into Wikipedia. Some of these might have tangential information available on Wiki, but this is not Wikipedia's meat and bones. Wolfram Alpha is not going to kill anything. It provides a new kind of service, and if it becomes popular the only deaths will be of those services that offer very limited value to begin with.

inerte 17y ago
The Nigeria ones are actually a good candidate to find on Wikipedia articles. I recently thought about moving to Norway and wondered how's the temperature there, if they speak english, and googled for "wikipedia norway". Country pages are a good source of that kind of information. Anyway, the others aren't really good, since they're time-based, and except for major stuff (like the political history), Wikipedia isn't the right place to look. But I disgress and agree, Wolfram isn't killing anything.
gyeh 17y ago
Try Wikipedia searches using Google: "<query> site:en.wikipedia.org" It enhances the Wikipedia experience to a whole new level.
Scriptor 17y ago
I tried "ethnic groups nigeria". Wolfram Alpha gave me a |-delimited string of them, Wikipedia gave me a much more comprehensive list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Ethnic_groups_in_Nigeria http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Ethnic_groups_in_Niger...) and each one is a hyperlink. Perhaps the author prefers to use Wikipedia for "facts and trivia", but I find myself enjoying the site for providing a detailed and thorough introduction to almost every non-trivial topic.
- zimbabwe 17y ago
  That's what Wikipedia's good for. It's not nearly as good at what Wolfram is trying to do, which is to process and comprehend complicated data analysis. They're two entirely separate things.

tsally 17y ago

A lot of the mathematical proofs and descriptions of algorithms on Wikipedia are surprisingly well written. You're telling me Wolfram Alpha can replace that? In fact, Wikipedia is a completely different type of service.

nx 17y ago
I really want to believe that, but we'll have to check later on. I'd like to see the OS community triumphing over commercial solutions.

russell 17y ago

XXX is the YYY killer is pretty much guaranteed to be wrong, esp. if YYY is good and thriving. (Hardware notwithstanding.)

harpastum 17y ago
As much as I don't think WA is a Wikipedia killer, I think that simply writing off emerging technologies that are attempting to replace the status quo is naive at best. If you're commenting on the actual phrasing of the article title, rather than the sentiment behind it, you're probably right. But I would push that assertion even farther: Link-bait article titles are 'pretty much guaranteed' to contain information that's either incorrect or obvious.
- russell 17y ago
  Right. I was going after link bait titles as a guarantee of little content. The true killers are usually not apparent in the early stages. Was it obvious that Google was the AltaVista killer? AltaVista had the brand name, a big parent company, and lots of smart people. WA is interesting on its own without all the "killer" blogs.
  - aswanson 17y ago
    I simply refuse to click on, and thus reward, obviously sensational idiotic linkbait titles. Hopefully, this behaviour spreads and will be the killer for the mass of them.

nimbix 17y ago

I don't see WA as a Wikipedia killer. It's more like a working version of Wikipedia articles: read about a concept on Wikipedia, then try it out in practice using WA. I think they complement each other very nicely!

nimbix 17y ago
UPDATE: threw together a simple mock-up of what WoframAlpha inside Wikipedia might look like: http://bit.ly/3PHMD http://bit.ly/3PHMD The content and position of a WolframAlpha block would be selected by article authors. Considering how much space it eats up, it probably wouldn't be expanded by default, but it certainly needs to appear inline. If there was just a link to this simulation in the footer section it would be almost invisible. Also, another shameless act of self-promotion: http://bit.ly/FT0qj http://bit.ly/FT0qj (full blog post)

patcito 17y ago

Wikipedia is one of the main source of data for Wolfram Alpha, so killing Wikipedia would make Wolfram suck if not die.

stcredzero 17y ago
I doubt if the loss of Wikipedia would affect Wolfram Alpha. they'd just license the information.

travisjeffery 17y ago

Not only are the different things but it will take either a lot more time or a lot more effort before Wolfram Alpha can compete with the amount of information that Wikipedia has.

cellis 17y ago

If you read "%s Killer" anywhere on a news site, you can safely ignore it.

jimbokun 17y ago
Agreed that Wolfram Alpha will not kill Wikipedia, but it is unfortunate that some interesting points are associated with such a link-bait title. Using FaceBook for people searches, Twitter for "what are people saying right now" searches, and Wolfram Alpha for CIA World FactBook searches does demonstrate the potential for vertical search services to thrive in the shadow of Google. If services that are better than Google for some narrow kind of search continue to proliferate, collectively they could become a competitive threat to Google at some point. Or at least threaten some potential Google growth opportunities. I though Dare made this point rather well, and I think it is worth further discussion.

csomar 17y ago

It's the first time i hear about the site: It's great and promising. however if i happen to use it a lot in the future (and may be several times a day) it'll not replace Google. This is not exactly an engine, it's a precious scientific tool edit: i looked for Google and this showed me the last trade in our local currecncy (DT)!! this mean they have care about visitors from all over the world

darkxanthos 17y ago

I'm getting very tired of the "Sorry, Wolfram Alpha is temporarily unavailable. Please try again." or "I'm sorry Dave". Regardless of whether or not it's "released". It is "released" and I'll be avoiding it until it's less frustrating to use.

erlanger 17y ago

No, not even remotely: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=ruy+lopez http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=ruy+lopez http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_Lopez http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_Lopez