Wolfram Alpha and Linked Data

Lots of interesting stuff happening these days regarding knowledge sharing and the future web.

The biggest buzz has probably been around Wolfram Alpha - the new "computational knowledge engine". I believe the potential is huge, but it is a very difficult task they are trying to solve.

It also seems similar to TrueKnowledge, but I really don't know them well enough to compare them. Both seems to depend on intelligent algorithms and using knowledge bases to find answers to questions.

Twine is a semantic web app focusing on people sharing knowledge and information, specially sharing and using semantic data.

They are using different approaches, but what they all need to succeed is data, and this is where LinkedData could be very useful. LinkedData is evangelized by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Web, and focus on sharing data on the web for others to link to and use.

I still think both Wikipedia and Google will be important in the future, but the power may shift a little if these services succeed.

If you want to travel to Barcelona (Spain), you'll probably go to Wikipedia for general information about the city (it's the first result if you search Google as well).

If you want the latest information about FC Barcelona (soccer) then maybe Wolfram Alpha could be more useful to provide up-to-date facts and figures.

If you want some general tips about being a tourist in Barcelona, you'll probably use Google to find some random web pages with information.

Today, most people start their search using Google for any information. As Wikipedia shows up as the first result for many queries, more people will go directly to Wikipedia if they know what they are looking for. In the future, more people will maybe use these new services if they want answers to their questions, instead of 'googling' where they have to look for the answers themselves...