Is it finally here? A real rival for Google (Nasdaq: GOOG)? Execs at the new startup search engine, Cuil (pronounced "cool"), seem to think so. And, seeing as the founders are former Google employees, there's a chance they know something about search.
Founded by two ex-Googlers (who happen to be married), Anna Patterson and Tom Costello, Cuil launched last night, with $33 million in its pockets from two rounds of financing.
Cuil claims to have 120 billion pages indexed, allegedly making it the largest search engine on the Web. (Google does not reveal the size of its index.) Also, rather than traditional search results found on Google, with a snippet of text and the occasional image, Cuil's pages provide a larger chunk of text and more images. Results appear in two or three columns. According to The New York Times, Cuil is using data mining to group results pages by content.
With regard to its über index, however, the engine to beat Google won't just be one with more results, but more relevant results. One can essentially find anything on Google. The issue is how often your desired result is buried beneath erroneous links. (While both equally delicious, mailbox spam and spam fajitas, for example, are a tad different in context.)
New startup search engines are launching all the time, donning the label "Potential Google Killer." Some we've discussed on Internet Evolution include Wikia Search, Mahalo, and Topicle. We even speculated Google death when Microsoft started offering its users money to use its search tool.
But the end result is always the same. At first, we all Ooh and Ahh. "This one could really do it!" we cry out joyfully, hugging bunnies in our midst. But after five minutes, we return to our Googling, leaving it to someone else to initiate and popularize the new engine.
So I, as your everyday hero, have decided to take one for the team by making Cuil my browser's home page this week. I will use the search engine over the course of the week and report back on my success, failures, and if I had to go running back to Google for answers.
While it might not be a Google-killer per se, it might just be cuil to have a real alternative.
"It's hard not to compare a new search engine to the only search engines we really use. Obviously we're using them for a reason."
Gee, good point.
Did someone say 'crunchy' as I'm stumpped at a loss of words here.
okay, compare it to don't Ask.com(now powered by Teoma). seems that's the only one as I searched for the top 10 contenders(there were only 4 really) - where near all of them have association(powered by) to Google or Yahoo.
My point CANNOT BE MOOT!
to be continued...
The "game over" graphic Tivoli ad to the right just had to rub it in.
moving on...
I heard that Cuil moved to # 18 search engine overnight after their press release which was close to when this thread started.
Looking at these metrics (alexa traffic rank) I see them as a success (in this stage)
Re: "Where do you see Cuil within the searchsphere when you don't compare it to Google/Live Search/Yahoo?"
That depends. What are we comparing it to, then? Other new start-up search engines? Or are we evaluating it on its own, not in comparison to anything else?
It's hard not to compare a new search engine to the only search engines we really use. Obviously we're using them for a reason.
Has anyone bothered to take a long look at the rich user interface of Cuil? It's still a baby far as a search engines(INFANT-OBVIOUSLY) - Yeah.. the amount of pages indexed is NOTHING in comparison to Google(seriously) - but it does have some cuil features to the right, it has been much faster than before AND it just may learn from your search queries.
Give it 90(?) days and see how it conforms to your liking.
I definitely find it to be a viable search source... much better than when other non Google (and Live Search) first started out.
Where do you see Cuil within the searchsphere when you don't compare it to Google/Live Search/Yahoo?
Yeah, that's not cool (or even "cuil," "koooool," or "cuuuuuuuullll"). And I don't really know about their technology, but they must thing it's spiffy. I assume it is. I can't imagine that the best defining characteristic of the service is that they provide results in columns, but then, who knows?
I just think all of us can think of saturated markets where we might have some expertise to start a business. But, we know we would be crushed because the market is saturated. Isn't the search market saturated?
But then again, what's their technology? "indexing 121,617,892,992 web page"? Oh, of which they have an incredibly high number of spam sites (I opened a first page result and got redirected to a site that wanted to download some weird file)
It's worth wondering what their motive is--maybe just to run something themselves, but, otherwise, I wonder what the end game will be. Probably not the market share leader, or a number 2 (unless Yahoo is acquired). I worked at Sprint for 20 years--it's a hard row to hoe as the number 3. Oh, and there's already a little #3 called Microsoft.
Then, is the technology so superb that Cuil will eventually be acquired? How much is search technology vs. brand and brand extensions (news, maps, hosting, etc.). If the latter, I don't see them gaining mindshare past the big 3.
I'm not being a skeptic--these are smart people. They must have an end in mind and I think it would be interesting to know what it truly is.
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