Contentinople - Erin Barker - News Bits: Too Cuil for School?

Written by Erin Barker

Monday, July 28. 2008 at 11:25 AM EDT 6 comments

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New search engine Cuil (pronounced "cool") launched last night, amidst some serious claims -- such as that it has indexed more than 121 billion pages, three times as many as Google (Nasdaq: GOOG).

The site was originally called Cuill, but they dropped the second 'L' (because, presumably, the shorter spelling makes more sense...). The founders, including some Google alums, said not only that Cuil will cost less to run than Google -- even at the same scale -- but also that it has better search results, because of how it indexes sites.

Unlike most search sites, Cuil doesn't simply catalogue keywords and rank based on importance -- it works "to understand how words are related... to return more relevant results to users," TechCrunch's Michael Arrington reports. So, for example, a search for "Neil Patrick Harris" also reveals some related category results that might not even include the name "Neil Patrick Harris," like "Emmy Award Winners" or "Doogie."

Cuil, as you can see, also has a different display, using a three-column approach.

Reviews so far have been mixed, with some critics mentioning technical glitches. For instance, when I tried to search for "chocolate" earlier, it returned zero results.

This news of possible competition for Google comes just as we discover that Google, in fact, doesn't dig Digg quite as much as we all thought: Google walked away from the deal some time last week.

In other news:

Hulu launched new embeddable widgets, taking the embed feature they're known for a step further. Users can now take advantage of four different widgets, such as the "Show and Movie Widget" below:

Center Networks's Allen Stern, however, is not impressed, since it "forces a user away from the content site to Hulu to watch the video."

Jon Heder will star in Electric Farm Entertainment's online zombie comedy, Woke Up Dead, which will consist of 50 three-minute episodes. Says Stan Rogo, of Electric Farm: "He will be terrific, he'd always wanted to play a zombie."

Tags: Google, Hulu, Search, Video

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TooCuil, NOT
ultramanj
Rank: Pasha
Monday July 28, 2008 12:09:57 PM

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My first search for "Sweet Water" turned up zero results. Loading was slow and the format isn't very easy to read. I do not see this as the search engine of the future.

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Re: TooCuil, NOT
ErinB
Rank: Caliph
Monday July 28, 2008 12:34:49 PM

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I'd have to agree with you for now, I think, though I suppose it's possible they could work out the kinks after a while. The load time is as if it's going through all 121 billion pages one by one... and the display irks me as well.

Also turned up no results for "vanilla." Suspiciously though, "strawberry" worked. Has Cuil revealed a milkshake bias?

And it doesn't seem to be able to find any information on itself either... I think it's hiding something.

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Don't Believe the Hype!
Ryan Lawler
Staff
Tuesday July 29, 2008 12:18:35 PM

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For all the play Cuil got in all the hep tech blogs, I'm surprised at just how bad it is.

It seems like everyone in blogger land got a chance to talk to the execs about the launch before they actually got to play with it. And posted about how it was positioned as a 'Google killer' with 'more relevant results' and a 'larger index.'

And when they actually did play with it, they all immediately posted about how much they disliked it. And how much of a Google killer it wasn't.

Which just goes to show -- good PR can only go so far if you don't provide a satisfactory user experience.

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Re: Don't Believe the Hype!
Roques
Rank: Pasha
Tuesday July 29, 2008 4:45:48 PM

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We can't compare a search engine a couple of days old with Google, a 10+ year giant. But Cuil, IMHO, isn't going anywhere because what's their selling point? "Search 121,617,892,992 web pages"... right.

How many times have you had to go beyond Google's first page of results? and if it isn't on Google's index (which according to some "experts" has ~50 billion) what are the chances it's relevant? I mean, how many Dark Knight reviews do you need?

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Re: Don't Believe the Hype!
Eve Bergazyn
Rank: Caliph
Tuesday July 29, 2008 4:52:35 PM

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Isn't all press good press? The Website was down when I tried using it yesterday.

After revisiting it today, I kind of like it. I did a search for "honey cake." (What I searched for isn't the point here.) Google comes up with nine different versions of the Rosh Hoshanah dessert (meh) and one coconut-honey recipe. Yawn. Cuil comes up with eleven (take that, Google!) recipes for honey cakes, with only a couple overlaps. Oh, and they also include photos. It might make using it at work a bit more difficult though.

Now, I'm no killer, but I kind of like Cuil. (Insert your own "cool"-related pun here.)

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