

Wolfram Alpha: a shortlived fad - jpwagner
http://www.google.com/trends?q=wolfram&ctab=0&geo=all&date=ytd&sort=0

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ZachPruckowski
Not sure that matters. This is how these sorts of things work: Massive
publicity at launch/open-beta, then a major drop-off as people realize "Oh,
this app isn't the Jesus-app the PR made it seem like", then a gradual,
permanent build-up as you slowly iterate and improve your site.

Furthermore, let's get rid of "Google-killer" as a metric. If Alpha can exist
in a separate niche and be a useful service to people and make itself money,
it's a win. It doesn't have to beat Google all-around to be useful to people
or to make money.

We live in a ADHD society. Our 24-hour cable news and blog-centric Interwebz
demands that things happen way faster than the real world works. The way
people today make it sound, Wikipedia went from launch to "beating Britannica"
in a few weeks, when in fact it took several years. Similarly, things like
Wolfram Alpha are going to take years to go from launch PR as a "Google-
Killer" to actually killing Google. The way our news system works, it expects
news stories to unfold over hours, not months, and to be world-changing, not
merely big.

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yesimahuman
Also, I think reserving judgment until most schools in the US start again and
people realize that Alpha is awesome with math would be a good idea.

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trafficlight
It was too hard to use. I never knew how to phrase anything properly, so I
just gave up on it.

~~~
omouse
Maybe 'cause it's meant for mathematicians, scientists, and engineers?

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trafficlight
No, that's not the case at all.

This article hit the nail on the head. [http://unqualified-
reservations.blogspot.com/2009/07/wolfram...](http://unqualified-
reservations.blogspot.com/2009/07/wolfram-alpha-and-hubristic-user.html)

For a while (this seems to resolved now) you could enter "one cup of flour"
and it would return the nutrition facts as requested. Enter "two cups of
flour" and the engine would choke. Would being a mathmatician or a scientist
make that problem disappear? No.

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Gibbon
Google trends is next to useless for this kind of thing. All I see is a ratio
of the peak volume vs. a baseline "normal" traffic volume. Looking at
quantcast and compete.. they went from zero to roughly 500k visitors a month
in less than two months, plus they survived a massive traffic spike without a
glitch. I call that a success in my books.

It's very handy, but specialist tool, almost like an almanac that computes
useful facts in real time. Stuff I would normally use my Lee Valley pocket
reference for
([http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=30039&...](http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=30039&cat=1,43513,43556.))

Example: What is the thread count of a no. 6 bolt?
[http://www08.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=What+is+the+thread+co...](http://www08.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=What+is+the+thread+count+of+a+coarse+%236+bolt%3F)

Any engineer would love it.

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spencerfry
I used it a lot during the first week, but I'll admit that I'm down to using
it maybe once a week. It's just a cumbersome interface that doesn't really
make much sense. I'm sure they'll spiffy it up soon.

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uptown
It was described as a Google Killer by many of the media outlets that covered
it. The problem with that description is that it doesn't attempt to do what
Google does, so users going to the site hoping to do a search they'd typically
send to Google quickly realized it's not for them. Rather than a fad, it will
probably continue to be a decent engine that's very useful for a certain
segment of users .... but not a viable general-purpose search engine for
mainstream users.

~~~
WilliamLP
The people who tried it emphatically haven't liked it. This is just empirical
fact based on page hits since launch. Many people have tried it.

The problem isn't that it doesn't do what Google does; it's that it doesn't do
what anyone wants.

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mikeryan
More fun with trends

Wolfram, Cuil & bing
[http://www.google.com/trends?q=wolfram%2C+cuil%2C+bing&c...](http://www.google.com/trends?q=wolfram%2C+cuil%2C+bing&ctab=0&geo=all&date=ytd&sort=2)

Actually need an 18 month range bu this will do.

I'm actually suprised at how much higher Cuil's peak was compared to bing
considering the current marketing push (is this all over or is MS pushing
harder here in the Bay Area)

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noodle
i still love it, but it isn't useful for me on on a daily basis.

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gfodor
UI needs to be fixed, here are my thoughts:

[http://codingthriller.blogspot.com/2009/05/fixing-
wolframalp...](http://codingthriller.blogspot.com/2009/05/fixing-
wolframalpha.html)

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asciilifeform
This is why:

[http://unqualified-
reservations.blogspot.com/2009/07/wolfram...](http://unqualified-
reservations.blogspot.com/2009/07/wolfram-alpha-and-hubristic-user.html)

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myared
This is like searching "google" on wolfram alpha trends. Use compete.com if
you want to prove a point, not google trends.

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smithjchris
It's very useful. I use it daily, particularly for date math.

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sound2man
I have the firefox plugin, but other than that I just use it for math I'm too
lazy to figure out myself - or to check my math.

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kkleiner
Stupid. Just because traffic is going down doesn't mean the technology or the
company doesn't deserve some serious attention:

[http://singularityhub.com/2009/07/27/wolfram-alpha-a-
force-t...](http://singularityhub.com/2009/07/27/wolfram-alpha-a-force-to-be-
reckoned-with/)

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slig
If there's no users, why would it deserve so much attention?

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fno
It is completely irrelevant how many users use it. If it is a great tool for
just a minority, then it deserves attention in that minority.

edit: Am I missing about the number of users deciding about the quality of
something? Or why on earth am I getting downmodded? I don't have a problem
with that, but I feel stupid and I rather not.

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slig
> If it is a great tool for just a minority, then it deserves attention in
> that minority.

Agreed. What I didn't agree was with the "serious attention" you mentioned
earlier. btw, I didn't downvote you.

