re: Are decision engines the Emperor's new clothes?

Jed Murphy - Carlson Marketing — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 17:14:12 GMT

Thanks for the post. Agree that it's not fair to compare Bing and Wolfram Alpha to one another -- but they have both positioned themselves in this new 'decision engine' category in an attempt to (a) create a new search segment (b) [in Bing's case] to try and separate it from being compared to Google -- Jed

re: Are decision engines the Emperor's new clothes?

Andy Lount — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:26:37 GMT

I think it is unfair to compare the two as I wouldn't say that WolframAlpha was a decision engine. It is certainly not going up against Google in the same search market and is also not helping me make any decisions. If anything, (though I would hate to provide a new term to pigeon hole it) I would say it was more of a logic-engine.

If I am a researcher or student and need to know the GDP of a certain continent over the last 10 years then WolframAlpha will be my first choice over Google, but I am not asking it to help me with a decision.

If I want to look up information on 2 different bands to decide which to buy then I would go to Google or Bing. I haven't seen enough yet to know if one serves better results than the other, but I doubt that anything will tear the majority of people away from the simplicity of Google. It has been seen often that some people see Google AS the web, typing URLs directly into Google rather than the URL bar provided in the browser for example. It will take a lot for any other product to become as synonymous as this.

I wait to be proved wrong, but I think it will be just another bit of short-lived publicity for Microsoft before the shine wears off. (lets face it - how many times have they changed their search already in an attempt to grab some of Google's market share?)

Still enjoy reading your articles though :)

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re: Are decision engines the Emperor's new clothes?

re: Are decision engines the Emperor's new clothes?