If you are scifi aficionado then you are doubtless familiar with the evil Internet-based artificial intelligence called SkyNet which is bent on destroying humanity (i.e. Terminator).  While definitely not evil or conscious, the next major evolutionary step for the Internet IS here.  It’s called Wolfram/Alpha and it is a major game changer for Google and a potential life changer for everyone else.  Here’s why…

Google’s primary mission is to index the world’s information and make it immediately and freely accessible to anyone with an Internet connection.  Many people on the planet use it every day because finding the information we want when we want it is really useful.  However, we’ve actually had search engines since the early days (circa 1994) of the Internet.  Google just happens to be the best at it.   However, any search engine has limitations as to what it can do with the information it finds.  In most cases it only returns references to documents that may contain the information you are looking for.

This is where Wolfram/Alpha provides a quantum leap over any search engine no matter how good (or rich).  In addition to indexing the Web, it also curates the information and codifies it so that it is “computable”.  That is, it allows you to ask regular human questions regarding just about anything that has a specific answer and it will provide you that answer plus abundant supporting information.  Now this is where it gets really interesting, the answer may or may not be found anywhere on the Net, which is irrelevant because Wolfram/Alpha computes the answer in real time.  Since all the indexed information in Wolfram/Alpha is computable, this also means you can ask questions about relationships between any number of things and it will spit out the answer.

The folks at Wolfram Research call it a Computational Knowledge Engine.  This can be a bit tricky getting your head wrapped around this one (a typical malady associated with quantum leaps ), so here’s a demonstration video featuring Steven Wolfram (CEO of Wolfram Research) at a Harvard University gathering just last Tuesday.

Now Everyone Can Access Expertise For Free…

Google gives us information, but is not capable of really telling us much about that information and its relationship to anything else in the world.  Wolfram/Alpha on the other hand gives us access to expertise that is limited primarily by our ability to ask the right questions.  Now all the rapidly growing petabytes of information on the Internet has suddenly become a whole lot more valuable —in ways that no ordinary search engine could ever hope to duplicate.  The technology behind Wolfram/Alpha is nothing short of astounding and represents hundreds (if not thousands) of man years of development in computational knowledge areas that are highly proprietary (i.e. Google with all its might and money is not likely to dupicate this one).

So how is this going to affect your real estate sales business.  I honestly can’t say for sure at this time.  But I do know this, it will affect your business and just about everything else we do from this point on.  Information by itself is not knowledge.  Instant access to expertise that understands nearly endless relationships between bits of information is the most valuable kind of knowledge.  Wolfram/Alpha totally redefines the bromide “Knowledge is power.”

NOTE: Wolfram/Alpha is currently in restricted Beta but will be released to the public later this month.  Keep an eye out in this blog as I will keep you up to date as I fully explore Wolfram/Alpha specifically with respect to it’s impact on the real estate business.