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What Wolfram Alpha needed was to avoid the Spore-style overhype in the days leading up to release. It was nearly inevitable that a product touted as "the Google
by stratomorph 17y ago
What Wolfram Alpha needed was to avoid the Spore-style overhype in the days leading up to release. It was nearly inevitable that a product touted as "the Google killer" would get slammed on the rebound, regardless of actual performance. As long as they manage to avoid getting a unit of measure named for them, or returning results about handing hamburgers to crying mimes while the universe abruptly fails to exist, they'll be doing better than some.
- pg 17y agoYes, if they'd just described it as a free, online window into Mathematica for ordinary people, everyone would be talking about how cool it was that it could do such a huge range of calculations.
- amichail 17y agoThat wouldn't get as much publicity. Most people hate math.
- vlad 17y agopg submitted Wolfram's announcement of Mathematica 7 a few months ago, and believes in launching early and then iteratively improving the product. I think he might have been sarcastic. I think Wolfram really does want as many users as possible. This is a type of search engine, not an online version of Mathematica. Students may stay for the step-by-step solutions to many types of math problems, but statistics on how real people use and seek to benefit from such a product are what Wolfram must really be after. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=369056 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=369056
- pg 17y agoI wasn't being sarcastic.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- vaksel 17y agowithout the hype, wolfram alpha would have been a sidenote in history that noone heard about
- 1gor 17y agoWhat Wolfram Alpha needed was to avoid the Spore-style overhype To avoid? I'm quite sure he (or his PR firm) has engineered the whole hype thing.