WolframAlpha

I'm still not sure what to make of WolframAlpha - the new "computational search tool". I like what it can do - as a way of solving crosswords, or doing math calculations. For a lot of information it's probably easier to use than Wikipedia but i can't really see how it will help in most business type queries - at least it won't yet.

If you want to find a word where you know some letters it's great. Type in _i_i_i and you'll get the answer "bikini" and also "militia" - two words that match that pattern. Put in an equation and you'll get a graph, or a chemical or molecular symbol and you'll get information on the element or compound. Enter in stock codes and you'll get some company information but too often the result is "Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input." You'll get this if you put in British Telecom but WolframAlpha knows about BT as enter this and you get correct information on British Telecom's share performance.

I think part of the problem is that WolframAlpha is different and new. It's NOT a search engine (despite the hype saying it would be a Google killer). It's not an encylopedia although many entries are encylopedic. Instead, it's what it says on its description - it's a computational knowledge engine. Use it to carry out calculations or to bring up data that's in it's knowledge engine - but don't use it for much more. It's a useful addition to the search scene and will make life easier for some searches, but that's about it. For most searches I'll stick with Google and other search engines. For general information I'll remain happy with Wikipedia. However I will use WolframAlpha for information requiring some element of computation more complex or requiring greater detail than is available in Google's calculate functionality.