Search engines are useful, but they just serve up matches to keyword-based queries — they don’t actually answer questions. Even a natural-language Google query like “What is the biggest city in Africa?” serves up answers based on keyword matching.
This month mathematician, physicist, and entrepreneur Stephen Wolfram will debut a different kind of online resource: a “computational knowledge engine” called Wolfram Alpha. It’s an attempt to provide “an authoritative source for data” from all sorts of fields: science, finance, sports — any information that can be numerically quantified or calculated. Ask it a question about this data, and Wolfram Alpha will run the numbers.
So far only a few people have gotten a sneak peek at Wolfram Alpha in action. CNET ran a detailed review that says the service shows data in a way that Google can’t.
Michael W. Jones says on Blorge, “Wolfram is apparently not for everyone. It is a serious research tool, especially for the technically inclined. It may well become the darling of scientists, researchers, analysts, and students while they are at work, but will probably not replace Google even for that group when they are at play. Alpha is an excellent tool for finding answers in objective areas, but the current version leaves much to be desired when looking for subjective answers.”
This indicates to me that Wolfram Alpha might be a useful tool for journalists scouting for data-focused stories, or for data to expand upon other stories.
However, if you plan to put Wolfram Alpha to journalistic use, you might want to consider this post from journalist programmer Brian Boyer (who, incidentally, was just hired by the Chicago Tribune): Mr. Wolfram, will you please show your work?.
Boyer notes: “as I can tell from Wolfram’s recent presentation at Harvard, Alpha will tell you the source of the data, and will sometimes show you an example formula for a type of calculation (how to figure the volume of a cylinder, etc.), but it will not show you the actual calculations necessary to arrive at the answer. …If your mother says she loves you, check it out.”
It’ll be interesting to see if the transparency of this project increases after its public debut. In the meantime, if you use Wolfram Alpha for journalistic research — you might want to get a second source, just in case.
