Imagine our existence explained by a single algorithm responsible for the rules of physics and everything else, that boils down to a simple computational process of a few lines of code? Touted by some as a Google Killer, Wolfram Alpha is a new “computational knowledge engine” designed to connect searchers with exact information by combining natural language processing and the web’s vast amount of organized and computable data.

Wolfram Alpha is the brainchild of Stephen Wolfram, a British born scientific genius who at the age of 15 years published his first paper, and at 20 years obtained his PHD in theoretic physics from CalTech. By late 1981 he set out to explore the origin of complexity. His book “A New Kind of Science” is the result of his extraordinary discovery – a discovery some say as profound a discovery as the concept of gravity.

“A New Kind of Science” is a 1200 page encyclopedia chalk full of computer experiments, diagrams, photographs, and even seashells, but its findings are extraordinary. Stephen Wolfram discovered how systems by their very nature break down but that from the chaos order is created. In determining search results Wolfram Alpha thinks about all the computations that people might think about or would want to do and then identifies ways that those computations could be strung together to delivery relevancy. Wolfram Alpha offers a type of hybrid search experience between Google and Wikipedia.

Search to date has largely been based on words and phrases and algorithms created by Google and the other search engines to filter out the junk on the web. Sometimes the process works but other times we want more, and because of this search can be frustrating. With Wolfram Alpha search is not limited to answers to questions already asked. It understands the question and using math it quantifies knowledge in an understandable format to answer certain questions. But you need to know how to use it. For example if you want the answer to how to configure a particular wireless router you could get an immediate response from Wolfram Alpha without the 500 pages of commercial websites that Google would return with the same inputted search. You would still however go to Google to search what local movie theatre was showing Star Wars.

It is very early in the launch so it is difficult to determine how searchers will respond to Wolfram Alpha. As with any semantic approach to indexing the world’s data this is an continuing project of immense proportions. On the surface though, it looks like Wolfram Alpha is a niche type search alternative that will appeal to certain groups like students, researchers, lawyers or analysts. Where the technology will take off will be in the hands of mashup experts. In fact, this little search engine ‘wanna be’ has at its core a very saleable technological asset that could be the answer to the growing consumer need for a more verticalized approach to search.

Hmm…wonder who will buy it?

14.6 million small to medium sized businesses are bracing to triple their web marketing budget according to Borrell & Associates in a recent report entitled: “Main Street Goes Interactive”. While these companies have traditionally spent their advertising dollars in the Yellow Pages, Direct Mail or Coupons, they now realize they receive better, more cost-effective, immediate, and measurable results online. In fact the report says that this group invests 11% of their advertising dollars online, up from 4% three years ago. The report also indicates that local interactive marketing budgets will rise from 8% in 2008 to 18% in 2013. Unfortunately online display advertising is not popular and has seen a decline in spend of 54%.

At PCM Interactive we have seen these research trends to be true as clients have most definitely gravitated to technology-supported marketing initiatives such as web site reengineering, search marketing and customer database marketing.

Google Ad Words has been an enormous hit with this group as well, especially in these tough economic times. You pay only when someone is interested in your product or service and clicks on your ad. You can control your budget for each day, and create custom ads and landing pages for different searches. The flexibility and instant ROI is what makes it attractive.

So, with the majority of searches online its pretty tough for the old Yellow Pages to compete. Yellow Pages Publishers have, in varying degrees tried to stay in the game with online directory versions but these sites for the most part are still cumbersome for the searcher who is looking for relevancy and speed. The Yellow Pages used to be where people went to when they needed a service. Now that same searcher is going to Google (72%) and other search engines.

However, Google is not the end all and be all in search. There is still lots of room for innovation in the online space. In fact recent advances in semantic search provide alternatives to Google that are mind boggling. We are moving very quickly into Web 3.0 and as such more players are in the game trying to figure out how to filter the web. It reminds me of the old gold rush days with some guy handing out flyers and yelling; “Figure out how to filter the web and you too could be Rich!”

Well until we get there there’s some panning that needs to go on first.

“Words, words, beautiful words masking a heart that’s breaking, breaking….” Can we really build computer intelligence through tagging, data mining, and dissecting words into stems, senses, and syntaxes of senses to make the semantic web a reality? I suppose the process is not dissimilar to trying to make sense of archaic Elizabethan language for a modern day audience.

“Have you the heart? When your head did but ache, I knit my hankercher about your brow, the best I had…”

Arthur was the heir to the throne but his uncle, King John usurped the throne sending young Arthur to the Tower and to have his eyes burned out by his keeper and best friend Hubert. One of the darkest of Shakespeare’s scenes in “King John” involved Arthur negotiating for his eyes to be spared. Playing this role was a challenge. Much of the language was difficult. By skipping on a rope and reciting the lines I discovered that reason was found in the off beat of the rhyme and in the haunting repetition of the letter “h”. The brilliance of the horrific imagery needed only to be placed not played. Shakespeare was brilliant in providing everything an actor needed to bring his work to life. The meaning was there in the rhythm of the language, the syntax, and stem. 

So how do computational linguistics decipher modern day language and web search to create valid meaning in our lives?

The semantic web, where web content is presented not as documents but as items of data linked by both meaning and relationship was envisioned nearly 15 years ago by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web. Since 2000, 23 billion data relationships have been coded using a protocol called RDF or resource description framework. RDF enables a definition of relationship of each data item to others, not just within a document but wherever that data may be on the web. The semantic web attempts to deliver search results from thousands of documents into one convenient collection and it does so in a personalized way. Think of the full functionality of Linked-In or Facebook using the RDF approach and you can imagine where we are headed.

BooRah a semantic and natural language processing aggregator based in Mountainview, California is attempting to extract user reviews, and blogs to summarize and rate local businesses. They score and analyze the content and package it in a usable form. For example a search for “hotels” in San Diego can return results that are more category specific such as delivering on qualifiers like type of service, facilities, etc.. that are more personalized for the searcher. They use location qualifiers to provide more razor sharp search result delivery to searchers looking for the: “best calamari in Chicago”. 

There is no question that computational linguistic professionals can have a huge impact on our lives. In fact these changes in search will impact every search engine, online retailer, media publisher and most web sites.

But how fast will the semantic web be here? Well, just as every line of Shakespearian text is not decipherable, neither do I believe semantic technologies can be diffinitive in understanding human language and all its nuances. Its going to take time. Such a broad availability of metadata, annotation data and relationship data is required in order for computers to learn and there are huge numbers of people required to dedicate the intelligence and judgement for building and maintaining it.

In 1965 Intel founder Gordon E. Moore predicted that computer circuit size would double every two years – exponential growth that is holding true today. That growth has contributed to the explosion of miraculous computer-enabled breakthroughs like global positioning, digital imaging, the human genome project, cell phone systems, powerful laptop computers, the IPhone, and the Internet.

Did you know it took radio 38 years to reach 50 million people, television 13 years, the Internet 4 years, the IPod 3 years, and Facebook 2 years? And, with remarkable speed we just hit another global landmark.

On January 23, 2009 the Internet, just over 6,000 days old, had its BIG birthday announcing 1 billion global visitors into its foray.

According to Comscore, a leader in digital measurement, 41% of the share of users are from the Asia-Pacific region, 28% from Europe, 18% from North America, 7% Latin-America and 5% from the Middle East.

By country, China leads with 18% of visitors with the United States close behind at 16%. Canada in comparison was ranked 11th at 2.2% of global usage or 22,000,000 visitors. (2 out 3 people in Canada use the Internet – not bad).

Google was the most popular site with 778 million visitors, Microsoft had 648 million and Yahoo had 562 million visitors. The most popular social networking site was Facebook having grown by 127% over last years survey. They boast 222 million visitors.

Now these numbers are especially interesting when you consider that they do not include visitors accessing the Internet from their mobile phones or PDAs. According to the newly released Ipsos Reid research paper “The Face of the Web”, Internet access via mobile is actually outpacing wireless access from a PC. They indicate 28% of mobile owners are currently accessing the web. If you consider that half the world owns a cell phone (3.3 billion) this means that there are potentially 820 million additional visitors accessing the Internet via mobile.

Do you hear the “ring” around the world?

Connecting with consumers has taken on remarkable new forms in the last year due to technology, the web, and social media. Ad budgets are going to look very different in 2009 as companies try to understand the changes and cope with current economic realities. Here are some trends I see for 2009.

• Search and performance-based media will continue to garner increased attention and budget dollars. There will be exciting advancements in local, semantic and vertical search that will keep search marketers on their toes.
• Social media will be recognized as an important part of branding and connecting to the customer but most attempts to monetize will appear cheesy. Engagement ROI will be hard to measure.
• Online video and digital marketing will grow as connectivity and processor speeds improve. This will provide enhanced presence on the web for companies looking to be found in universal search results.
• Online advertising dollars will be spent more efficiently with greater focus on ROI, measurability and analytics.
• Crowd sourcing will create some innovative, new business models.
• The mobile web will explode with new applications by IPhone, Bold and Google. The best ones will be those that bridge the gaps in search and make our lives easier. Our cell phone will be our favorite device as it will allow us to travel with our favorite shows, alarm clock and baby monitor. We are even going to use our “preferred device” for scanning bar codes and comparing prices online in “real” time.
• Permission-based marketing will continue to demand greater commitment to the customer and their needs.
• The green movement will slow but community involvement and event marketing will see a resurgence.
• Networking costs will be included in company budgets again. Boasting about global connections at cocktail parties will not be unusual as the trend for global connectivity will continue along with our basic human need for pen pals and sharing.

In short Charles Darwin sums up what is ahead quite succintly when he said: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change”.