

Wolfram Alpha API now free and open - preek
http://blog.programmableweb.com/2011/01/21/wolfram-alpha-api-now-free-and-open-to-all/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ProgrammableWeb+%28ProgrammableWeb%3A+Blog%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

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piramida
The reason they failed is fairly simple. People are not that smart, on
average, so the usage of their service, besides initial "have some fun"
period, is limited to data researchers (of all kinds), scientists and
students.

It may be not the smallest audience, but I think their best bet would be
working on direct deals with schools and universities instead of trying to
attract small-scale developers -- why would developers be interested in a
project that probably won't ever pay back but will start charging after 2000
uses?

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riffer
Beware: _The free development account is allowed a maximum of 2,000 calls per
month_

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Turing_Machine
If they're going to offer a commodity service, they should probably come up
with a better pricing structure than "call a salesman".

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wheaties
Their last pricing strategy failed horribly because it was too expensive. I
hope they're just searching for a price point rather than hiding their fees.
Anyone in contact with them about pricing?

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iamjustlooking
At 2000 requests per month that is one request about every 20 minutes,
laughable.

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MJR
_free and open_ to all developers making a maximum of 2000 requests per month
for non-commercial usage.

Doesn't sound very _free and open_.

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mark_l_watson
I signed up for it and have played with the Ruby client library. While the
limit of 2000 per month free API calls seems _limiting_ it is enough for both
play and possibly using it to generate some machine learning data for your own
experiments (e.g., learn to produce similar results in a very narrow domain).

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svetlins
What is Wolfram Alpha's business model?

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metatronscube
To hook you like a fish

