socialmedian: Stephen Wolfram’s “Alpha” isn’t a Google killer; they’re in different businesses

User-submitted headlines for this story

Clip

Stephen Wolfram’s “Alpha” isn’t a Google killer; they’re in different businesses

Submitted by Ian Mac Millan

Mar 14, 2009

Summary

My friend Bob Kerns blogged about Stephen Wolfram’s “Alpha” project. The project aims to take on Google by creating a web-retrieval engine that can answer specific factual questions directly. Type in, “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” and it will go out to the Web, retrieve the answer, and tell you. Bob doesn’t think Alpha will be able to challenge Google. I agree.

I’d never heard of Wolfram’s “alpha” before, but the sensationalistic headlines, in my humble opinion, show a total misunderstading of Google’s business model.

Google is in the advertising business, not the search business. Search is one of many distribution channels they have for that advertising. It lets them offer targeted ads, because what people search for can be used to target ads to people who might want to buy a product or service. Read the full article

Comments (0)

Add Your Comment