Can Cuil rule the [search engine] roost?
Tuesday, August 5, 2008 at 4:43PM I always feel that it's a little unfair to judge a website by its first week out of the gate. Having start-up experience myself, I can understand how hard it is to launch a website, deal with exaggerated traffic, and the typical glitches that come with the territory.
With a little over a week of operation under this potential Google-killer's belt, I thought it was time for me to weigh in on Cuil.com.
Like most sites aiming to be more 3.0, Cuil revels in the less is more homepage. With a simple black background with blue and grey accents, the typical search form is present. One major thing I noticed was the switch in color after you type in a query. That is, the site shifts from a black background to white containing search results. Google, Yahoo and MSN Live Search take a more visually cohesive route offering a white to white turnover.
Another big difference is the stacking of search results. I am not sure if this is a new website trend, but Cuil delivers information horizontally. In an earlier blog post about new micro-blogging site Plurk, I also noted this flip in expression. Personally, I like my content vertical and linear based. I think trying to get people to get into a different allocation of web real estate is a challenge for any user.
Cuil claims to search "based on their content and relevance" versus "popularity metrics". When I typed in my name, the first 4 results were my LinkedIn page, CNET Live blog, Andrewmager.com, and Valleywag [nothing too scandalous there, luckily]. My own webpage was number 5. With Google, Yahoo and MSN, Neha Tiwari Pvt. Ltd. is the first result---just the way I like it. Not to say that I mind LinkedIn in the results, but having it come up first doesn't quite seem right. My LinkedIn profile is not as relevant to who I am on the web; my website is more of a net reflection. "Neha+Tiwari" on Google proves to have a much closer representation to me, with my web page, my posts on Webware, and my DMS on location interview present on the first page. Another strange thing is that every other time I entered my name in Cuil, a completely different set of search results came up, most of which were not relating to me! I am hoping that this is just a momentary lapse in programming, for the fledgling site's sake!
People search is one aspect, generalized terms are another. I typed in "Pulitzer Prize" which had a much better yield and variety in search. One of the fancy features of Cuil is the right-hand "drilldown" which contains a number of categories. This is a nice way to categorize results, and I could see how it could be useful to researchers. Otherwise, I miss the image, video, and various other multimedia searches of Google. Another search result option to show results in 2 or 3 columns. It may have been intended to increase customization for the user, but I find it to be cosmetic and useless.
I think the bottom line is that Cuil is more of an encyclopedic-type research, not personal-based curiosities. In a cyber-world where random Wikipedia searches reign supreme, I doubt there is room for a relatively selective search engine [which is ironic since Cuil's tagline is "The world's biggest search engine"]. I am sure this search engine will find a small niche of people who are pleased with what they have done, but they are a long shot from replacing Google in my web search.
Reader Comments (6)
no. bigger isn't always better.
I like Viewzi much better than Cuil. I think it's gonna get spammed really hard soon.
It is new, so I don't expect them to be immediately more relevant than Google. Google has been in the game for a loooong time and although they don't make a bid deal about the semantic web, I don't think they would let Yahoo get the jump on them in the search arena.
Or, Google will do the M$ thing and wait until they start to get really competitively accurate and buy them. Google and Microsoft are great at acquiring new cool stuff. And sometimes ruining it.
I think the original search was made out of what methods and technologies were available to us. As a result we've become accommodated to bad technology and we now have modified our perception what is optimal for search, which leads us to think of new search engines as subpar because the results are not the google like results we've convinced ourselves we love. the "next google" will not be like google, but we forget that the next big thing will be something we didn't see coming. there is a paradigm shift coming in search, but I don't think this is it. it's fun that we're getting new stuff though :-)
hey.. found your blog through this week's 'Drift interview'. for a moment, i confused you with another friend of mine (aka tiwariji), who also happens to be your namesake.
To be honest? No. Google is the verb for itself, and that is very hard to defeat. Never mind the fact that, well, I find more personable results off of a Google search of my name than Cuil - and is that not what Cuil has been bragging about?
I wrote my own... response to it, a few days ago
http://www.thisaintnarnia.com/2008/08/04/guys-stop-youre-killing-me/