Is Wolframalpha a threat to Google?

I read some juicy thingy about Wolfram|Alpha. Yea it sounds too good. And I wish that it should make success.

The reasons....

1. Search is the "Start" button of web as OS, as URL is dead.

2. Most noisy results end up

1. Wasting lots of peoples time -- may be contrived to CO2 emission

2. Lots of CPU and network will be wasted to do search again -- collectively it will be equated to CO2 emission and lots more...

3. Change in the confidence of user, frustration getting right information etc

I am not denying the Server workload to give such a nearly correct results. Evidently, correct/trusted information is always costly.

So, lets welcome to be born baby. It gives us manly feeling - like "If i ask somthing tell me the truth and stand firmly on what you provided", all ladies please execuse me.... Here is the page http://www.wolframalpha.com/index.html

What kind of search do we need?

I was thinking about how could google search can be improved.... Many of us familiar with semantic search. I am thinking about user sourced semantic search, yes this is, for sure, my idea. I was thinking this from long back. Probably knotting multiple familiar technologies and drawing similarities to them and come up with something. It is like GOF came up with design pattern or Ward Cunningham influenced Design pattern which he got influenced from Alexander (Civil Architect). I will explain how.... here you go...

People do search and click on the link... if they didn't find the relevant information they move on and to next page or try to refit the query. So here is the catch. If the move on and click any link, it means earlier page had just noicy result that should be eliminated. Is it correct it does in the first attempt? No, don't trust single person. From my young age if I want to ask a route to some place, which I like to go, I normally ask more than a person.

There are 2 reasons,

1. person who answered could have lied

2. Double check will make sure that probability of error reduced. So if both person points two different directions, you need to be very careful. Ask few more....

So this is thingy I developed when I was young.

So why can't it be applied to search?

URL is dead, is it?

Nearly a year back, I had a discussion with my friends in a Hotel room in Smokey Mountain. The topic was about how they inform their friends or parents about new information in the internet. I was telling them that simply tell them the information key words, for example- cooking, then they would easily searchgoogle it to find out. I really wanted them to understand that google is a desktop for modern web application as all the other sites except google, we normally end up using google search and hit the right website rather than typing it in the browser address bar. In other words web search is primary vehicle to hit the proper web site. But they didn't agree with me went on arguing that they will tell the complete url, yes something like http://.../.../... I was not able convince them because they don't want to simply agree with me. I also felt they didn't really appreciate the current internet world and information sharing etc etc... However we all are into Computers and Software development esp web based development and know very well that visiting some web sites normally starts with google or search, search become windows start button of the web world. Today I happened to see the article @ http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_url_is_dead_long_live_search.php This article reflects what i felt when i discussed with my friends.