During the Wolfram Alpha demonstration today, the Google Blog announced the launch of their own structured data search feature that allows you to find and compare public data.
Searches such as [unemployment rate new york] will now bring up a quick answer that looks like this:
Clicking on the result will take you to a more detailed graph with ways to plot other data on this charge. Below is me plotting Rockland County, New York, compared to New York State and also adding California:
Google promises to add public data for answers on prices of cookies, CO2 emissions, asthma frequency, high school graduation rates, bakers’ salaries, number of wildfires amongst others. Currently this data is coming from produced and published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau’s Population Division, but Google does hope to bring in more public data sources.
Why did Google announce this during the Wolfram Alpha Demo? Wolfram Alpha seems to be all about collecting these data sources and making it easy for people to search information on these types of data sources, complete with charts. The timing suggest Google was hoping to spoil what some see as a weakness it might have compared to Wolfram Alpha. I expect us to do more detailed piece on Wolfram|Alpha soon, so stay tuned.
Gary Price has also posted on the news and Google also posted a quick video demonstration:
Postscript: See Impressive: The Wolfram Alpha “Fact Engine”, our review of the service and which also covers Google saying the timing of its structured data launch was entirely coincidental.
Related Topics: Google: OneBox, Plus Box & Direct Answers | Search Engines: Academic Search Engines | Search Engines: Answer Search Engines | Search Engines: Wolfram Alpha | Top News
Zittrain was a guest lecturer on the Queen Mary II when I sailed from Southampton to New York in 2005.
His perspective of the internet is evident in Wolfram|Alpha’s positioning.