I am too young to remember when Google broke onto the scene. Considering I only started using email with a university account in 1997, and tentatively exploring the web a little after that, it is fair to say that I arrived quite late to the technology party.

It would also be pretty fair to say that I was looking the other way, or more likely, trying to get older kids to buy Newcastle Brown at the corner shop for me, when most of the great technology events of the past decade or two occurred. But I might finally have cracked it this time, with Wolfram Alpha.

Created by British-born scientist and all-round brainbox Stephen Wolfram, it is what he calls a “computational knowledge engine”, and therefore differs from search in a few vital ways. Which is just as well, because despite new search engines launching every few weeks, Google still has the lion’s share of the market.

Some, such as Oparla, have tried to differentiate themselves from the competition by offering users the chance to win money by searching, while others, such as Yauba, say they can offer privacy protection. Another, MelZoo, previews search results on the right-hand side of the screen. All seek to do something that web behemoth Google cannot do, but so far none has met with much success. This is because most human beings are creatures of habit, and they have by now grown rather used to using Google to search the web.

Wolfram’s bid to be inducted into the digital hall of fame, however, does not rest on out-Googling Google, but providing a rather different kind of service.

Put simply, Google looks up web pages that may contain the answer to your query, whereas Wolfram Alpha reads and processes your query before computing the answer. Well, in theory anyway.

To explain fully how it does this is beyond my capabilities, for reasons I alluded to at the start of this column. However, in Wolfram’s own words, the technology aims to “explicitly implement methods and models, as algorithms, and explicitly curate all data so it is immediately computable”. Simple.

And Wolfram and his team have tried to do this with a combination of automated help from his Mathematica computational software program, and lots of human experts.

Now with all that complexity going on behind the scenes, Wolfram has been wise to keep the user interface pretty clean ­ there is only one input field, much like Google.

There have, however, already been some complaints, including accusations that the site is not web standards compliant, and that the engine cannot understand users’ queries. Early feedback on the Wolfram Alpha blog points to disgruntled users failing to have their “simple” questions, such as “What is the highest building in London?”, answered. And yet the same engine can hazard a guess at “How many fish in the sea?”. Total ocean fish biomass, in case you were wondering, is estimated at 2,000,000,000 metric tons.

This is a project that will never be finished, says Wolfram, so perhaps it is a little early to judge this effort, especially given the vast number of man hours and computing resources that it has taken to get it this far. Remember, Google wasn’t built in a day and Wolfram’s pet project is still an alpha.

It is probably best not to rely on Wolfram Alpha just now for any mission-critical tasks, but given the extraordinary potential, it is well worth keeping tabs on it. Just think ­ I might yet be able to claim one day that I was there at the birth of a technological phenomenon.

By Phil Muncaster

Many firms are still weighing up the benefits of rolling out social media technologies, according to a recent poll by Computing’s sister web site vnunet.com. Only seven per cent of the businesses surveyed use social media tools ­ – a surprise given recent reports that indicate social networks are now more popular than email.

Market research firm Nielsen recently reported that 67 per cent of internet users worldwide accessed social networks last year, compared with 65 per cent who used email.

The growing popularity of these tools means implementing them at work is relatively straightforward in terms of staff acceptance and training. But what do firms have to gain from such a move?

Social networks can be used to distinguish a brand from its competitors, especially now while sophisticated online media strategies are still relatively thin on the ground –­ it’s an opportunity to stand out.

Recently, I’ve been interrogating the collective mindset of the Twitterati, looking for insight into why people use our web sites ­ nearly all of them said our presence on micro-blogging site Twitter was a key reason why they remain loyal our brand. Twitter has helped connect the writers with the readership, making them appear more approachable.

Similarly, by allowing outsiders to contribute their views and influence opinion, a Twitter presence can give a business a reputation for having an open and engaging culture.

Other than marketing purposes, social tools can serve internal functions. One senior executive from a trusted household brand told me she analysed her co-worker contacts to understand relationships that exist in the workplace. She suddenly understood why certain people were getting better treatment than others. Perhaps social networks might contribute to a more level playing field, shedding light on “old boy networks” or other such bastions of inequality.

A growing number of executives are also using social tools to tighten relati ons with outsourcing providers and partners, as well as to better understand their customer base. I have found that I now form contacts through Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn before I attend a conference and then use the event to solidify these relationships.

So what is holding companies back from deploying social tools? It is difficult to make a compelling business case for deploying a social strategy in the middle of a deep recession. Although many social tools are free, integrating them with a company marketing programme requires skill, time and investment.

However, done well, social strategies can be incredibly cost effective. For example, the huge publicity confectionery brand Skittles generated when it spent £100,000 on changing its traditional homepage into an online portal of feeds from Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube would never have been achieved had the same money been used to pay for TV advertisements. Skittles was rewarded with 4,000 mentions in the news following the launch.

Less-adventurous firms may hesitate because they can’t envisage a formal way of measuring the results of social media marketing strategies. Businesses need to adapt to a new way of doing things, measuring performance through new metrics such as mentions on blogs, comments on content and clicks through to web sites.

Moderating social networks is another obstacle that may seem difficult to overcome. There have been a few scare stories in the news about how the openness of social networks can quickly dent an individual’s reputation. However, such scenarios can be avoided by hiring firms that specialise in managing user-generated content, such as Tempero.

If businesses do not want to jump in at the deep end with the likes of Twitter and LinkedIn, there are social suites available from enterprise vendors that might be a better place to start easing their workforce into the networking mentality.

By Rosalie Marshall - who Twitters at http://twitter.com/RosalieVNUNET

Isn’t it time IT leaders stopped asking where software-as-a-service (SaaS) might be deployed in their business, and started wondering instead where it shouldn’t?

Recently, SaaS pioneer Salesforce.com celebrated its 10th birthday. This year it also became the first enterprise cloud computing company to reach $1bn (£700m) in annual revenue, and has about 1.5 million subscribers.

If you want an alternative snapshot of how far on-demand/SaaS/cloud computing ­ – whatever you want to call it ­ – has come, look no further than Serena Software, an application development tools provider that migrated more than 700 worldwide staff to Gmail, in about the time it takes me to get to and from work.

Here is a sizable company dumping Microsoft Exchange because it can get a cheaper, more efficient and no less reliable service from the cloud. All done in the blink of an eye.

A recent Forrester Research report confirmed that the model has evolved beyond its early roots in customer relationship management and human capital management applications and is now gaining traction in areas such as web conferencing, collaboration and IT service management. These categories will experience significant SaaS success over the next decade, says Forrester, with only business intelligence and integration technology vendors unlikely to adopt the model.

But what of the caveats to this brave new world? Gmail itself was rocked by an outage in February, which had the Twitterati tweeting furiously. It was only out for about two and a half hours, but highlighted the problems, some said, of letting loose consumer technologies in the corporate sphere, and especially of using cloud-based technologies ­ – it’s out of your IT department’s control, you see?

Well, it hasn’t bothered Serena. René Bonvanie, senior vice president of IT, told me that Salesforce, Google et al do a better job of uptime and transparency than most IT departments can manage, it’s just that outages are so much more vis ible with these vendors.

And as for security concerns – ­ they are no greater with Salesforce than they would be with an on-premise Oracle solution, he says. Recent privacy concerns around Google’s cloud computing services may rock the boat for a little while, but too much momentum has already gathered for this to spoil the SaaS party.

By Phil Muncaster

Last October, the head of Sequoia Capital, the top dog in Silicon Valley venture capital, called a now infamous meeting. The heads of the companies in which Sequoia had invested were ushered into a boardroom where, standing before them, was a gravestone bearing the epitaph “RIP Good Times.”

British partner Mike Moritz then began a detailed explanation of how bad the next few years were likely to be. Staff would have to be cut, budgets trimmed to the bone and all industries would be hit ­ business and consumer. Given Sequoia Capital’s clout and track record, the whole tech industry took the message to heart.

However, nearly six months later, the situation may not be as gloomy as some first believed. Redundancies have been bad but businesses are still buying they are simply more selective about IT.

A case in point is the move to green computing, which is receiving a double stimulus from government spending and the knowledge that it makes sense, because efficient technology saves money.

Likewise, mobile data also seems to be surviving. Mobile internet is taking off in the US in a big way now that services are being standardised. The duality of mobile phone standards in the US has left the country two steps behind Europe, and to an extent one behind Asia. But 3G has won out and there is now strong growth in mobile applications, particularly in financial transactions and location-based services.

But the really safe bet seems to be services. Salesforce.com and other software-as-a-service firms have seen a big uptake in business. It is partly the result of reliable web connections but also the cost savings involved. Buying software on CDs is seen as wasteful and so old fashioned.

Companies such as IBM have been seeing growth in software services revenue while hardware sales head in the opposite direction. IBM’s sale of its PC division to Lenovo is now looking like a very smart move indeed.

The one bright spot in hardware is mobile sales. The iPhone is making a play for the business market, although it needs much more application support to really make an impression; RIM is continually hitting the market with better BlackBerry models, and the new Palm Pre looks to be a smash if the company can deliver on time.

By Iain Thomson, US editor

It had to happen in the end. “Green” has been replaced on the list of most overused terms employed to sell IT by “economic downturn”. The list of vendors prepared to reinvent their products to highlight just how much money and time they could save you, and how much more efficient they can make your staff, has reached critical mass. The world’s going to hell, but before we get there, you might as well save your firm some money and get a promotion by buying a new piece of IT kit.

Actually, can I shock you for a moment? E-commerce is doing pretty well. Among all the talk of recession, depression and economic regression, there is a success story out there, and used in the right ways, the web channel could be a godsend for retailers. It could help public-sector bodies too. Get citizens to request and pay for council services online, for example, and imagine how many drop-in centres you could close.

A recent report by affiliate marketing firm Linkshare found that shoppers are increasingly turning to the web for the best bargains or to do research before shopping in store. Sites that feature peer reviews of products are also reporting healthy rises in traffic. While 56 per cent of consumers said they are planning to decrease offline spending, only 46 per cent said the same about online buying.

The message is clear get your online store in order, preferably before Christmas, although by now it’s probably too late for this year’s festive period. Improving your online store involves a range of different factors, including a search engine optimisation strategy to ensure you rank high on Google, as well as usability, availability and performance testing. Another key consideration is the integration of online, bricks and mortar, and call centre channels.

But the mistake many in the e-commerce sector seem to make is paying too much attention to the bells and whistles on their web site and spending too little time on the back-office stuff that can make or break the business. They might not be as sexy as web design, with its Ajax this and Flash that, but supply chain management and other disciplines are just as important. You might have made the check-out process as smooth and the site navigation as effortless as possible, but if a customer’s order is left unfulfilled because you’ve run out of stock, you can kiss your next sale goodbye.

It has become something of a truism these days, but in the world of e-commerce the customer truly is king; retention is difficult when switching suppliers is so easy, and prices are so competitive. That’s when factors such as delivery become extremely important.

Industry body IMRG last year launched a new initiative ­Internet Delivery is Safe (IDIS) ­ to combat the woeful levels of delivery service provided by most e-commerce firms. Very few allow you to choose delivery times, or if they do it will come at a premium price.

Retailers displaying the kitemark have to ensure they provide clear information on deliveries before an order is placed, delivery within an agreed timeframe, and clear charges. The emphasis is on convenience and reliability.

Recently, I had the pleasure of ordering a new bed from the Co-op ­like your typical Web 2.0 shopper, I have no loyalty to this company, I just found it through Google ­ and noticed the IDIS emblem proudly displayed.

Available delivery dates were shown on an easy-to-read calendar display, three-hour time slots were offered, then follow-up phone calls to check the address, and finally a text to confirm details. It’s not rocket science, but these things could help your customer retention at a time when, as you know, we’re all headed for economic disaster. Oh, and the bed was delivered on time too, by the way.

By Phil Muncaster