VentureBeat - Latest Comments in Cuil might just be cool enough to become the Google-killer in search

Re: Cuil might just be cool enough to become the Google-killer in search

Guest — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 01:46:42 -0000

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Re: Cuil might just be cool enough to become the Google-killer in search

spsyed — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 22:20:37 -0000

Armchair critics unfairly compare Cuil with Google, Yahoo and MSN, etc. Cuil is a new startup, launched with $33m in August 2008. So, it is not in the same league as Google (startup January 1998) and Yahoo (startup 1993). Google still has less linked web pages compared with Yahoo. Both have W3C errors, but MSN has none. Google was the fifth biggest US outfit, and global brand #20 in 2007 when its stock market capitalization was $230 billion with annual revenue of $16 billion, $4 billion profits and 20,000 employees... Moreover, both Google and Yahoo suffer from Internet click fraud... read links here http://tyneham.wordpress.com, http://tyneham.blogspot.com

Re: Cuil might just be cool enough to become the Google-killer in search

anthony — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 09:35:43 -0000

good luck Cuil..it seems interesting. will keep my eye on your progress. crawl these popular video clip sites and tv show sites; hulu.com, zoogatv.com and tidaltv.com

Re: Cuil might just be cool enough to become the Google-killer in search

Reg_Crowder — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 06:58:30 -0000

Hey, Cuil is interesting. I'm happy to see some fresh blood in this game.

What happens next? Dunno. Too early to tell. Like they say, "The opera ain't over 'til the fat lady sings." I don't know what Google looked like the first day it popped up on the web. I'll bet it wasn't as good as it is now.

These things take time.

By the way, Cuil is NOT a Google killer. Google didn't kill Yahoo. (Yahoo didn't die.) Google didn't kill AltaVista. (AltaVista didn't die.) Google didn't kill Lycos. (Lycos didn't die.) And so on.

Technology companies kill themselves, from within. I don't know how or why it happens. But that is how it goes. So far, this year, Google doesn't seem to be in the mood to destroy itself. It is doing a pretty good job of doing a lot of useful things.

REG CROWDER
International Investing
http://knol.google.com/k/re...
http://www.journalistdirect...
http://www.RegCrowder.com

Re: Cuil might just be cool enough to become the Google-killer in search

mdangear — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 12:05:05 -0000

The issue I see with Search like this is that keywords doesn't do it. Because the context and the purpose of a given search depend on who I am and where I am (intellectually) more than anything else, so ranking content based on how much time others have spent of the page or other statistical information will not work for me.
Unless I can register and the data can start applying to me (statistics on what I do, not everybody else), the search engine will never have enough context to be really relevant to me. This is why I like adding the human into the equation.
At the opposite end of this search spectrum, one company I like for example, which belongs to the "social media" paradigm is muchonbene: instant answers by people. Given critical mass, this is the killer search engine, powered by a crowd of live persons, a great concept you may be interested in for your review...

Re: Cuil might just be cool enough to become the Google-killer in search

danny — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 06:32:00 -0000

excellent point about Cuil being missing in action from its search engine.

Re: Cuil might just be cool enough to become the Google-killer in search

Sachendra Yadav — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 06:09:25 -0000

I searched my name and the most relevant results like my blog or my linkedin profile were nowhere to be seen, instead it threw up not-so-relevant results like comments I had posted somewhere and a bookmarking site I used for a week and quit posting to 6 months ago.

Google become a phenomenon because it gave relevant results. I don’t understand why these ex-googlers are missing this simple point by miles?

Re: Cuil might just be cool enough to become the Google-killer in search

Svetlana Gladkova — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 02:02:55 -0000

That's what I noticed - they never allowed anyone to try the engine out before it is totally public. They obviously have a great PR team - Cuil received tons of positive reviews without anyone seeing it actually and them people had to publish new posts to explain that they were not actually happy about the product performance. Interesting move, I think, but does that really mean they were not even sure it would perform properly from the very beginning?

Re: Cuil might just be cool enough to become the Google-killer in search

Anthony Ha — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 20:17:08 -0000

" ... but this is not where the hot stuff is anymore, the world had moved ..."

Hmm, I disagree pretty strongly with this. Then again, I'm still figuring out FriendFeed, so maybe I'm just a dinosaur ...

Re: Cuil might just be cool enough to become the Google-killer in search

mdangear — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 18:58:16 -0000

I agree, no question that search is here to stay, but this is not where the hot stuff is anymore, the world had moved and while there is probably room for another search engine, this is not where I would spend my money these days...

Re: Cuil might just be cool enough to become the Google-killer in search

Anthony Ha — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 16:26:19 -0000

Marcus, we don't have any problem covering companies that haven't raised venture funding yet, but this seems like a separate story than review of Cuil. Can you shoot me an email at anthony@venturebeat.com and we can figure out if VentureBeat should do an article on you guys? Thanks.

Re: Cuil might just be cool enough to become the Google-killer in search

mruark — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 16:08:31 -0000

Hi Anthony,

For your full review, please add Gigablast to the mix. I think you'll be impressed with the quality of search results you'll find, even when compared with the current leaders in search (much less Cuil, which is having an admittedly rough first few hours).

We haven't raised venture funding, so it may not be something you can cover. But we do search the full internet, our search latency is as fast as Google (and much faster than Yahoo and Microsoft), and a majority of users in a blind "taste-test" found our results to be "as good as or better than Google's."

So, give us a shot at www.gigablast.com and let me know what you think!

Sincerely,
Marcus Ruark
Gigablast, Inc.

Re: Cuil might just be cool enough to become the Google-killer in search

Anthony Ha — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:50:56 -0000

Thanks everyone, for all the great comments -- keep 'em coming. We're going to have a full review going up soon, but I will say that my early impressions are similar to a lot of the ones here -- I love the interface and layout, but the search results are pretty spotty.

Re: Cuil might just be cool enough to become the Google-killer in search

Anthony Ha — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:46:35 -0000

Ah, yes, you must be using that other Internet, the one where Web-based businesses don't agonize over their Google rankings and SEO.

Let me suggest that Google is a big enough company that it can expand into plenty of other areas without forsaking search.

Re: Cuil might just be cool enough to become the Google-killer in search

Chris — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:44:10 -0000

Me.dium recently released a search engine that applies a social aspect to it very much like this one.

Me.dium (http://me.dium.com/search) is processing user's clickstream data in real-time to create a different lens based on what's going on now. e.g. do a search for John Edwards on Google or Live, and you get johnedwards.com and wiki/johnedwards. Do the same search on Me.dium and you learn that today people care about his love child, pictures of his mistress, etc.

The difference is real-time (what people are browsing now) vs. historical (what they browsed in the past). Social vs. Old School. Check it out! http://me.dium.com/search.

Re: Cuil might just be cool enough to become the Google-killer in search

Nigeriansummit — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:43:30 -0000

Well, i couldn't access it as it was down. The owners should have known that a lot of traffic will come based on their promotion.

Re: Cuil might just be cool enough to become the Google-killer in search

Anthony Ha — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:39:53 -0000

"Anthony, it is amazing to watch the tone of bloggers change almost immediately after they actually give Cuil a try!"

Yes, I've noticed that too. As I and other bloggers/reporters have noted, we were not given advanced access, so we went with the information we had. It wasn't completely blind, since I was given an in-person demo, but there's only so much you can do in just a few minutes.

Re: Cuil might just be cool enough to become the Google-killer in search

Anthony Ha — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:37:43 -0000

Well, I think part of the idea is that they *aren't* using the same algorithms.

Re: Cuil might just be cool enough to become the Google-killer in search

mdangear — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:06:23 -0000

Search is so 1.0, who cares about this anymore?

The new search is social media. I use blogs or twitter to find the content that people are discussing, which is a really good filter. And the system feeds on itself too. If the people/blogs talking about what I am interested in are not in my list, I will include in my ecosystem so that I can get their input next time as well.

2 examples of this:
- search.twitter.com: type a keyword, see who discuss the subject and what their general tweets are about. If they are talking about what you are interested in, follow them and you will get the input as it comes.
- eCairn: build a list of blogs, start listening, and keep feeding the system. The more you read, the more your ecosystem will be, and the better access to information you will have.

Now for Google all this is not a huge deal (at least Cuil is not) because Google is about infrastructure these days, rather than search. The real killer Google App is Google Apps, as a way to help companies transition into the new world of online collaboration and online participation. Watch them on this, I see a big wave coming...

Re: Cuil might just be cool enough to become the Google-killer in search

mdangear — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:04:38 -0000

Search is so 1.0, who cares about this anymore?

Re: Cuil might just be cool enough to become the Google-killer in search

mdangear — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 14:57:23 -0000

Search is so 1.0, who cares about this anymore?

Re: Cuil might just be cool enough to become the Google-killer in search

Robert Snell — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 14:01:15 -0000

Cuil in their current state doesn't have a chance at being the Google Killer. Currently it is just a method of data collection and offers a poor way to view it. Their search needs work before I'd even consider them a Google Killer, right now they'd have a hard enough time scratching Google.

Its all about how you sort and display the results and Cuil has missed the market with irrelevant search results, no localization and overall a poor launch.

Re: Cuil might just be cool enough to become the Google-killer in search

Nate — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 13:53:34 -0000

a larger index is not the solution to defeating google search. relevance is, and cuil most certainly does not have it at this stage. in fact, it's pretty absymal. thanks but no thanks.

Re: Cuil might just be cool enough to become the Google-killer in search

allenh — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 13:21:24 -0000

Is it really a bigger search directory if sites that regularly come up in Google, aren't listed in Cuil? The interface is okay, but who scrolls to the bottom of a page to look for the the 'next' button? I really want to 'like' coil - but it needs more tweaking.

Re: Cuil might just be cool enough to become the Google-killer in search

Gregory A. Beamer — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 13:10:23 -0000

I am dispointed with Cuil, personally. I ran a few informal tests and it often resulting in Cuil returning a load of garbage. Once you get out of the common searches, especially towards the undernet or black hat topics (web hacking, etc.), the more SPAM that float to the top. If this is the best Cuil has to offer, it will not kill Google, it will be eaten for lunch.

On my tests, it failed in relevance and speed, although some searches came back only a little bit slower than google. It also fails sometimes for no reason on simple searches, only to deliver relevant links the next time you search the same words.

As I said, my test was informal, but I am unimpressed for now. See blog entry (tinyurl.com/5kvlsy).