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Is Cuil Cool?

I can’t find out right now if Cuiil is Cool. The latest entry in the Daniel vs Goliath reality show of Google slayers is Cuil (pronounced ‘Cool’) but it’s usually down.
Cuil.png
I’d like to try it though. I claims that it has a larger Internet Web harvest than Google or MSN. Some folks who have gotten in to this start up from ex-Googlers say it gives interesting results but nothing consistently better yet.
Maybe they’ll get their own humourous FailWhale or Bloglines Plumber soon.
Worth watching.
Stephen

Posted on: July 28, 2008, 2:42 pm Category: Uncategorized

By: stephen

4 comments

4 Responses

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  1. Kirk Fontenot said
    on July 28, 2008 3:49 pm

    I tried Cuil out this morning. I really like the interface; the results page is definitely more aesthetically pleasing than Google’s. But the question is — is that why I use a search engine?
    Also, when I turned the Search Filter to “off,” the search totally stopped working. For example, I did a search for “Dark Knight” and got lots of nifty results on the new Batman movie. However, when I turned off the Search Filter and did the same search, I got “No results to display.”
    I guess they’re still working out some kinks.

  2. Deborah Fitchett said
    on July 28, 2008 5:37 pm

    I just tried it. It’s very pretty without seeming to sacrifice speed for the prettiness. The search I tried brought up different results than it normally does, including some very interesting ones, but for the most part they were touching the subject more periphally than I’d expect. Does look like a useful supplement to other search engines though.

  3. Ken Poore said
    on July 29, 2008 12:42 am

    Cuil is a nice UI; that’s about it. The search engine behind it appears anemic; many multi-word searches cause it to hang, and it appears to have no concept of a geographic search that returns a useful map (e.g. “restaurants in Kirkland”).
    I like the way the tabbed interface offers disambiguation and I like the category browser on the right, though it doesn’t look very friendly for those that need a more accessible way to interact.
    It won’t kill Google, Microsoft won’t buy it, and Yahoo! doesn’t care. It’ll be off the radar in a couple of weeks once Cuil’s marketing engine runs down.
    What it *should* do, however, is inspire Google and Microsoft’s Live product teams to offer a more customizable *end-user* search interface on par with the fairly lightweight portals each company already offer. For example, Google’s text-only search experience is uninspired, even though they tout their continued refinement of featured results (for airline flights, zip codes, and company names). Give the world some tools to play with the results layout, add a few modern layout/browsing/faceting tools, and let *me* prioritize the types of sites I want to see. Oh wait–I guess that would upset their paid placement ads.
    Nice try, Cuil.

  4. Jana Atkins said
    on July 29, 2008 3:31 pm

    I’d like to suggest that aside from testing whether this search engine is usable or user-friendly or even helpful, I don’t think it’s going to work. If you have to tell me how to pronounce the name, you already have a marketing problem. But on top of that – now that I know how to pronounce it, how do I spell it? I can’t find the site anymore, because although I’ve been saying the name to myself all last evening, I now no longer can type the name into my browser without having to look it up. Back to Google…