Cuil is a new search engine developed by a few people who left Google. It's always been my fondest hope that som
eone would come along and give the Big G a real taste of competition. I don't have anything against Google - I just think that competition will help bring out the best in them. Naturally, when I heard about this on the morning news, I couldn't wait to try it out. It looks really slick on first impression. Their "about us" page got my attention by adding a picture from the prehistoric stone circle on the Beara Peninsula in Ireland - I had been standing on the same spot 2 months ago. The searches go quickly and produce "big number." Here is where they start acting similar to Google - a search for my name and Quinnipiac produced more than 6000 hits, but when I tried to see them, there were only a few hundred. There is an attractive drill-down feature on the right, but the entries seem somewhat incomprehensible. For the search I just mentioned, the only suggested subtopic was "People from St. Louis." I don't come from St. Louis, so I'm not sure where that came from.
Most amusingly, they add pictures to each page description. In the case of my entries, there are dozens of pictures of somebody else named Terry Ballard. Their formula really should ensure that the picture comes from the page they are describing. Enough other people were interested that their servers were swamped in the afternoon. My verdict is that I love the concept but the product isn't quite ready for prime time.
eone would come along and give the Big G a real taste of competition. I don't have anything against Google - I just think that competition will help bring out the best in them. Naturally, when I heard about this on the morning news, I couldn't wait to try it out. It looks really slick on first impression. Their "about us" page got my attention by adding a picture from the prehistoric stone circle on the Beara Peninsula in Ireland - I had been standing on the same spot 2 months ago. The searches go quickly and produce "big number." Here is where they start acting similar to Google - a search for my name and Quinnipiac produced more than 6000 hits, but when I tried to see them, there were only a few hundred. There is an attractive drill-down feature on the right, but the entries seem somewhat incomprehensible. For the search I just mentioned, the only suggested subtopic was "People from St. Louis." I don't come from St. Louis, so I'm not sure where that came from.
Most amusingly, they add pictures to each page description. In the case of my entries, there are dozens of pictures of somebody else named Terry Ballard. Their formula really should ensure that the picture comes from the page they are describing. Enough other people were interested that their servers were swamped in the afternoon. My verdict is that I love the concept but the product isn't quite ready for prime time.
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