Gabriel Harper's Blog

The recent launch of Cuil and the widespread press has caused more than an uproar this week. Bloggers around the Web are “calling out” Cuil on dubious press claiming to be a Google killer and show-stopper in search, when after 50 million searches on day one led many users to say… WTF? That’s not what I wanted! Many popular news channels and Internet professionals are talking about how Cuil screwed up, botches results and even has a stupid name. I have to ask – did this new search startup drop the ball or is this honestly just part of their PR campaign?

If you haven’t already heard about Cuil, it’s a brand new search engine positioning itself as a radically new approach to search. Founded by ex-Googlers and flaunting experience in “every major breakthrough since search began”, it’s hard to think that Cuil creators didn’t actually test their search engine before rolling out a massive press campaign. Looking at the trail of complaints about Cuil, one thing is for sure. Their related images suck. There are countless examples of totally unrelated images being displayed alongside results, and many of these are actually quite humorous.

So is this a case of a simple botched release? Buggy search and some poor image results causing an unintentional uproar? Possibly. Or is it possible that Cuil realizes a few basic problems like this would lead to massive amounts of viral press?

Who knows, but I can say with confidence that Cuil has outdone Google hands down in one area. They have a DOCTYPE.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 31st, 2008 at 7:20 am and is filed under Business, Search Engines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.