There has been a lot of hype about the new search engine Wolfram Alpha. Once again people are talking about a Google killer, the next big thing etc. etc.

What has come out of the presentations given so far (the search engine itself is not online) is that it is something very different from Google. Wolfram Alpha is a search engine for the hidden web. It goes out to various public and private databases and fetches relevant statistics.

So instead of developing crawlers that indexes all the web pages out there, Wolfram’s engineers spend time on identifying good databases and figure out how they can make them answer questions like “How many inhabitants are there in Norway?” or “What is the distance to the Moon?” in a meaningful way.

We will be back with a review when the search engine has been opened for the public.

• Impressive: The Wolfram Alpha “Fact Engine”

  A Google-killer? Nope! But when the service launches, it should become an essential in anyone’s search tool kit. (SE Land May 1 2009)

• The Quest for Computable Knowledge: A Longer View

  Stephen Wolfram: “Yesterday afternoon I took a few hours out to give an early preview of Wolfram|Alpha at Harvard.” Apr 29 2009

Google is, of course, trying to meet the threat of Wolfram with innovations of their own:

Here are more of this week’s search engine headlines:

• Google to provide location services to Firefox users

  US based search engine giant Google has just announced that they have now become the default location provider service for the Firefox web browser. (Software Journal May 2 2009)

• Google Custom Search Cuts uTorrent Off

  The immensely popular BitTorrent client uTorrent recently added a Google powered torrent search engine to its website. (TorrentFreak Apr 30 2009)

• 4 Ways to Add Keyboard Shortcuts to Google Search

  Opt-in to Google experimental search or get a Firefox plug-in (SE Journal Apr 28 2009)

• Alternative Keyword Suggestions Tool: Actual Keywords

  Actual Keywords is a newly-launched keyword research tool (that can be a good alternative / addition to WordTracker and Keyword discovery). (SE Journal Apr 28 2009)

• Ask.com Adds Site Links

  This week Ask adds Domain Navigation (what Google calls Site Links) to the first listing in its organic results. (A Beal Apr 28 2009)

• Google’s Book Search Settlement is DOJ Concern

  Google has come under fire again with the American Department of Justice after alleged anti-competitive behaviour, this time in the world of literature. (Site Visibility Apr 30 2009)

• AOL Spin Off, Yahoo Layoffs, Google Losses, IAC Spoons And Pines For AOL

  Time Warner confirmed the long-expected intention to sell or spin off the AOL unit. (SE Land Apr 30 2009)

• Google Webmaster Help Forums in more languages

  Google Webmaster Central Blog announces Arabic and Czech help forums (Apr 30 3009)

• Twitter Search (Finally) Available To All Users

  Twitter has announced that Twitter Search is now available on all user account home pages. Not only that, but Twitter has also added a “Save This Search” feature (SE Land Apr 30 3009)

• Microsoft Live Search Launches SEM 101- A New Blog Series

  The primary aim behind the launch is to train people in promoting their websites. (PageTraffic May 1 2009)

• Swine Flu Concern Helping With Google AdSense Revenue?

  Some people are suggesting that if people are afraid to go out, they might spend more time on their computers. (SE Roundtable May 1 2009)

• New Search Options for Gmail and Twitter

  Head to the Gmail Labs tab in your account and you’ll see the option to switch on Google Search within Gmail. (Andy Beal May 1 2009)

• Sorry, Tom Curley: Don’t Expect A Google Ranking Boost For The AP

  Apparently talks between Google and the Associated Press aren’t going well (SE Land May 1 2009)

• Ask.com becomes Germany’s search engine no.2

  Ask bought a lot of Adwords traffic (Search Cowboys Apr 26 2009)

• Microsoft Goes Social (& Local) With Vine

  It’s an interesting local/social communications and information tool that plays in the same sandbox as both Twitter and Facebook (SE Land Apr 28 2009)

• Google Pages is shutting down in June: how to save your data

  Your web site on Google Pages will be moved to Google Sites soon (Google Tutor)

• What we talk about when we talk about cloud computing

  Google Enterprise Blog: We serve tens of millions of users, so we’ve had to build infrastructure that scales and can run extremely efficiently to support that load. (Apr 28 2009)

• Alpha Google: When Mathematicians Collide

  Google tries to steal Alpha’s thunder (Beyond Search Apr 28 2009)

• Google and Microsoft Advise Obama on Technology

  Among the technology experts are Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google and Craig Mundie, Chief Research and Strategy Officer at Microsoft. (About Apr 29 2009)

• The Google car seen in Oslo, Norway

  Google is adding Scandinavia to its street views on Google Maps (NRK Apr 29 2009)

• Does Pirate Bay verdict spell trouble for Google?

  The Pirate Bay outcome could have wide and lasting implications for the likes of Google and YouTube (Silicon.com Apr 28 2009)

• New online search tool developed for legal research

  The Information and Telecommunication Technology Center and the School of Law at the University of Kansas have developed a powerful online search tool (Alt Search Engines Apr 29 2009)

• The Wide Open World of Web Site Search

  For e-commerce operations, the way customers search once they land on a site can be just as critical as the way they get there in the first place. (MacNewsWorld Apr 29 2009)

• SearchMe Changes

  SearchMe promotes itself as “true, blended multimedia search.” (Beyond Search May 1 2009)

• Countdown to Kumo? Neowin reader spots 40 day clock

  Will Microsoft’s new search engine arrive on June 2? (Liveside.net Apr 26 2009)

• Most-searched term on Microsoft’s live search is … ‘Google’

  ‘Yahoo’, ‘Google’, ‘Google.com’ and ‘Yahoo.com’ searches together account for about 2.7% of all queries on Live Search (Guardian April 30 3009)

• Alpha Beta - Greek Pun Unintended

  Alpha describes itself as federated search. (Alt Search Engines Apr 30 2009)