There has been a lot of work in the background these last few weeks. While that work continues, I thought I would take a moment to mention that Wolfram Alpha really has the potential to turn the concept of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and the way the Internet's traffic flows upside down.

Think about it:

Instead of being pointed to where the information is and going to that site, you just stay on the search engine's site. That means totally different revenue models and Internet traffic movement. While from my brief tests some things work well and others don't - e.g., "cat's life span" doesn't give you results - if the system continues to improve, there will be little reason to go to reference pages and therefore, the ad supported Web Site models are definitely threatened even further.

On the other hand, it's great to see innovation coming during the recession and it supports the idea that passionate people continue to do incredible things even in spite of economic challenges. What they have built may or may not be the next evolution of Search but it certainly brings some needed change into the space much like Google did to Yahoo! and Microsoft Search years ago.