by jammastercd » Wed May 20, 2009 1:04 pm
Although promising, it's still limited in some key ways. It appears the algorithms make some pretty strong assumptions about the user input. For instance, I tried a couple of books that were also re-created as movies, such as I Am Legend. The Wolfram results were related only to the movie. Nothing was returned about the book, not even a reference that a book of the same title existed. On the other hand, a simple Google search returns multiple results for both the movie and the book on the first page of output.
As an additional limitation, I also tried entering the phrase "I Am Legend book" into Wolfram. All I got was the response "Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input." It then suggested I click on the the related link for the movie I Am Legend. Underneath the results section was also a list of generic topics, including Books. I clicked on Books and then entered the phrase "I Am Legend". It re-routes me to the movie results page again, with no reference to a book of the same name even existing.
Now you may say that I Am Legend wasn't nearly as well known as the recent movie, so there isn't much data for it. So I tried The DaVinci Code. Guess what? Same results! No mention of the book whatsoever! I get essentially the same routing of results as with I Am Legend, even if I go to the Books section and search for it there. Of course, I then tried "Da Vinci Code." It returned dramatically different results because of a simple (and easily mistaken) space.
Now I understand that Wolfram Alpha is not meant to be used like a search engine like Google, Yahoo, etc. However, returning such limited and widely varying information leads to misleading, or at least confusing, results. It's worth watching where it goes, but I would be VERY careful with the results of this tool in such an early stage.
Although promising, it's still limited in some key ways. It appears the algorithms make some pretty strong assumptions about the user input. For instance, I tried a couple of books that were also re-created as movies, such as I Am Legend. The Wolfram results were related only to the movie. Nothing was returned about the book, not even a reference that a book of the same title existed. On the other hand, a simple Google search returns multiple results for both the movie and the book on the first page of output.
As an additional limitation, I also tried entering the phrase "I Am Legend book" into Wolfram. All I got was the response "Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input." It then suggested I click on the the related link for the movie I Am Legend. Underneath the results section was also a list of generic topics, including Books. I clicked on Books and then entered the phrase "I Am Legend". It re-routes me to the movie results page again, with no reference to a book of the same name even existing.
Now you may say that I Am Legend wasn't nearly as well known as the recent movie, so there isn't much data for it. So I tried The DaVinci Code. Guess what? Same results! No mention of the book whatsoever! I get essentially the same routing of results as with I Am Legend, even if I go to the Books section and search for it there. Of course, I then tried "Da Vinci Code." It returned dramatically different results because of a simple (and easily mistaken) space.
Now I understand that Wolfram Alpha is not meant to be used like a search engine like Google, Yahoo, etc. However, returning such limited and widely varying information leads to misleading, or at least confusing, results. It's worth watching where it goes, but I would be VERY careful with the results of this tool in such an early stage.