just cuil off--premature race entry.

the response to Cuil, the recently launched "competitive" search engine to rival Google, has been wholeheartedly underwhelming. you can see everyone's under-enthusiasm in a little stream compliments of twitter. Cuil is pronounced "cool"--but a word to the wise. be careful with this ridiculous name: don't misspell it, at least not at work.

Cuil was formed by ex-Google employees in a hope to give Google a run for its money. basically, it's got a pretty neat interface. it looks fun. which is important. "remember that the search occasion isn't just mandatory, it's also fun!"

but anyway. integrating images into the search results are pretty cool and somewhat reminiscent of StumbleUpon--with one downside: the pictures aren't right.

the results are fewer, despite Cuil sporting a "wider scope" of tracked pages, and the results are also irrelevant. if i search for me, i don't even get this blog. i get a laundry list of "buzzter" records. no profiles, nothing. it is hard to find me, even if you're looking directly for me. this problem is across the board, it seems, and not just with my branding.

there are also many complaints about its slow load time, in addition to its irrelevance and image errors. so basically, the take home message is, Cuil is very... pretty. otherwise, currently useless. holds a lot of promise, but for it being a few years in the works, its launch into the seo race seems largely premature. it's leaving a bad first impression, but people seem open to possibilities.

perhaps take it back into the Batcave and emerge with some better technology--the costume is just fine. my questions to you:

how important are the longer text blocks and the images to you? do you prefer the 2-or-3 column look, or are you more comfortable with the Google-style laundry list of results? how do you say it? i just can't say "cool." i wind up with that ridiculous teen word in my head, "kewl," like kyool, whenever i see the word Cuil.