Hot on the heels of search engine, Bing’s launch, which aims to rival Google’s crown comes a new kid on the block – WolframAlpha!

Termed as a knowledge engine rather than a search engine, WolframAlpha aims to answer your queries rather than take the traditional approach, which often identifies sites that may have the content with the answers, a la Google.

On first glance the site seems to work pretty well, coming up with the answers quickly and efficiently for everything asked. I have already added it to my bookmarks and will be continuing to use it when I’m in need of an answer to a specific question.

To some extent and despite Google placing relevancy at the heart of its model – the day may come where it becomes a victim of its own success with online surfers becoming frustrated having to search through a list of results to find the content or answers they desire.

As ever it will be interesting to see if our search habits begin to change, with recent figures showing an increase in market share for Bing, and as our surfing habits become even more advanced perhaps now is the right time for a new breed of search site to take advantage. As always only time will tell…