In the last days Wolfram Alpha is highly discussed. It is an answer engine not a search engine that is its difference. What makes it an answer engine is: it doesn't give you a list of search results and waits you select one, rather it gives a single answer, if it can. Now it is in Alpha stage and generally gives the warning "Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input." I've tried some queries like “What is the average temperature in Turkey” and Wolfram Alpha answered "18 degree". Wolfram can understand now simple, not so complex and generally statistical, mathematical queries. (It is especially very powerful in math since it has "Mathematica" in background)

 

How Wolfram Alpha works? It has huge databases and several algorithms to get and filter information from these databases. In its algorithm base, it has many formulas from physics, math, economy and other science fields. When we enter the query and search, Wolfram gets necessary info and gives us a single answer not a list. This point is stressed by it is founder Stephen Wolfram in a press conference; he said "Wolfram is breakpoint in Web" because of this single answer style.

 

What will be the effect of Wolfram on search engine market? What will be the answer of Microsoft and Google? How they determine new strategies? Google, which has 64.2% share in the market, gave its first answer. In late April, when Stephen Wolfram give his first speech about the release of Wolfram , Google announced its new future that is now it has access to actual governmental data in order to be able to give up-to-date results and with this results custom , actual graphics. Also, Microsoft CEO announced the release of new search engine www.bing.com. So the market is vivid and is ready to new news.

 

What about Stephen Wolfram, the founder of Wolfram Alpha? Who is he? In Wikipedia, he is a physicist, mathematician and computer scientist, author and a businessman. (I remembered Benjamin Franklin when I read about him- Franklin was author, politician, painter, politician, political theorist and statesman) Wolfram, 50, is an English man. He was child prodigy and at 16 published an article. His annual profit is 22 million $. He said about his project, I want to produce useful things not make money. Let's see what will be result of his project in search engine market and searching techniques? Maybe in the future we can see alliances of big players (Google, Wolfram and Microsoft) in the market?