Wolfram|Alpha expands reach and results

It was inevitable, but astounding fast.

A month from the launch on May 15th, the WolframAlpha team has made changes to the product that encourage usage, tap into enthusiasts, and help to move beyond web geeks and scientists

handled nearly 100 million queries in the first 11 days

released a major update while continuing to grow the data

announced an application for the iPhone and IPod and thereby simplified access to drive usage

created a community of dedicated users who are generating ideas and sharing usage tips

Come up with interesting options to make WolframAlpha your homepage of choice (this one is my favorite, which provides both traditional search and WA albeit not yet integrated)

gained kudos from such varied sources as eats.com, physorg.com, esquire.com,

given us the meaning of life (again)

What Wolfram Alpha is NOT is a Google Killer or even a bing killer.

Ryan Singel posits in Wired.com that WA could be an attractive acquisition target for one of the major search engine players.

As I said in my pre-release post on WA, if this were integrated into the browser as a seamless tool in the search suite it could provide some true differentiated value.

There is already a first step in this direction as Josh Lowensohn reports that Firefox has already come up with a new extension that allows you to use Google search but displays WolframAlpha results on the side of the page.

And the elephant in the room - What are the monetization alternatives for WolframAlpha?

There is of course acquisition as the end game.

It is reported that WolframAlpha has dabbled in ads on the results. However, Taylor Buley of Forbes casts doubt on that as a reasonable business model.

At the moment, WolframAlpha appears to be angling for corporate sponsorship while keeping options open.

Certainly at this point, none of these options will be paying the bills. Let’s hope that Stephen Wolfram has secured an adequate source of funding which can allow this resource time to link the value to reliable recurring revenue.