www.WolframAlpha.com
Launched this week WolframAlpha promotes itself as a computational search engine. What this means is that as well as returning a search result it manipulates the data to present a deeper contextual analysis, including graphics and tables.
This is a US based product, so results are strong for the US. But for NZ statistical data as an example, results are top level and there are search quirks. ‘NZ gdp’ returns no material where as ‘new zealand gdp’ does.
Material is drawn from public source information, biased to US government and international agencies. More up-to-date and indepth data may be available from alternative sources. With NZ GPD this would be Statistics NZ.
It’s well worth keeping an eye on how this site develops ... the demo presents a very tantalising view.