

Cuil Tries to Rise Again - russell
http://www.technologyreview.com/web/23038/?nlid=2196

======
Scriptor
Integrating social networks into search engines just sounds like something
straight out of a web 2.0 idea generator. I don't see how this will be useful
at all. I'm gonna make a guess that the kind of highly general searches this
would be good for (like band names used in the article) is only a tiny portion
of most actual searches. Even then, people might rather just ask their friends
if they want this kind of information.

Another thing, the vast majority of links shared by my friends are hardly
informative, maybe weird, funny, awesome, etc., but few people post stuff on
Facebook like they would on HN. Without context, they will only clutter up the
search.

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wglb
I'm sorry, but whenever I hear Cuil, i cannot get the cuil theory
<http://cuiltheory.wikidot.com/what-is-cuil-theory> out of my head.

Additionally, when i hear the word 'leverage', I release the safety on my
Browining.

~~~
froo
When I first decided to give Cuil a go, I did a broad search for my home city
(Perth) who's population is about 1.65 million people (roughly).

I finally found a result on the 3rd page of Cuil (towards the end), with the
first 2 pages being dominated by some Perth in Scotland who's population is
several orders of magnitude smaller (and is officially classified as a "town")

In fact, it's population is so much smaller, our stadiums contain more people
in them during average sporting events.

Does not compute.

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea that they want to create a new search
engine. I even like the idea that they want to take on Google but come on
guys. When your highly publicised search engine gets its ass kicked by a stock
installation of Lucene, you're doing it wrong.

~~~
timcederman
Hi froo. As a fellow Aussie, please do me a favour and stop such rampant
apostrophe abuse. Thank you.

~~~
timcederman
I'm not sure if I'm being downvoted because froo edited out the worst of it,
or if I offended people's sensibilities. Ah well.

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jacquesm
Cuil should do less PR and more coding.

They have good ideas but a service that simply doesn't compare to even the
smallest competitors in the same space.

For one heck of a hack check out <http://gigablast.com> , one guy and a couple
of years of work.

~~~
hwijaya
Totally agree with you here. I wonder if any of the management team read Steve
Blank's "Four Steps to the Epiphany" book. Cuil sounds like the exact example
being outlined there.

------
tokenadult
"'Statistics show that people, especially young people, are much, much more
likely to click on a URL if they see it in a blog or Tweet from someone they
trust. This clearly has a big impact on Web marketing and is leading a number
of companies to develop tools to track and target these social influencers,'
he says. 'But whether it will really jive with search isn't as clear to me.'"

I wonder how those statistics are gathered? I am indeed much more likely to
follow a link if a friend recommends the link. (For this purpose, "friend" on
HN would mean person with high karma who has reliably recommended good links
before, if the domain of the link is unfamiliar to me. I'm very chary about
following unfamiliar links to unfamiliar domains unless a closer friend,
someone I know from an email list ideally, recommends the link.) But I do
still follow links from Google, because I count on Google to filter out
nefarious links with spyware or malware. It's still not clear to me why I
would even start using Cuil again, after its epic fail at launch last year.

------
iron_ball
"jibe", not "jive". <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/jibe>

While we're at it, "home in", not "hone in".

I am angry at language as used!

~~~
dtf
Or, for those who aren't stingy with their particles: "hone in on" :-) Some
interesting speculation on the origins:
[http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000378.h...](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000378.html)

------
natch
There's that old joke that God tipped America on its side and all the loose
screws slid to California. And then God tipped California on its side and all
the loose screws slid to Marin County. And then God tipped Marin County on its
side and all the loose screws slid to Bolinas. My kind of town.

Anyway, I wonder if there is a similar thing going on here with Cuil
attracting clueless executives. Not to be mean piling on criticism after
criticism on Cuil, but really, asking people to do anything that touches their
social network is something you have to slowly work up to, with a process of
building trust. It's not a switch you can just turn on overnight.

Or maybe they don't care about users. Maybe they just think the social
buzzword will attract some needed investors.

------
vegashacker
This actually sounds like an interesting idea to me. Most of the time, I
suspect, my search results don't need data from my social network to improve.
But occasionally social data might be highly relevant. And so if my search
results are Google quality most of the time, and even better (due to social
network hits) a small percentage of the time, Cuil may totally rock.

I also like how this isn't a social network search engine. It's an extension
of normal search. I can't imagine myself (at least today) sending a separate
query to my social networks. But obviously I query a normal search engine all
the time.

I wonder if they will run into Terms of Use issues with Facebook et al. In
order to search efficiently, they'll need to store social network data...

------
uptown
These guys had all of the PR a new company could ask for, and they completely
fell on their face. While I'd love to see more competition in the search
space, I think the hill is even steeper this time for Cuil. Their name could
use some work too.

~~~
tokenadult
_Their name could use some work too._

Yes, I can't even keep track of what the canonical pronunciation of "Cuil" is.
I know that the company doesn't want us to think "epic fail" when we see
"Cuil," but that's what usually happens for me.

------
omarish
I think it was disadvantageous that they tried to make such a big fuss out of
their technology early on. They could have been a bit more stealthy, see what
works, and then scale up; that's probably why luck tends to favor the quiet
guys over the loud ones.

------
jackdawjack
A little off topic but i can't get over that damn name, i read it as "cul"
which is, by my shoddy translation, french for ass-hole. "Va mis en cul!" And
from its performance that's actually pretty sound advice.

------
Flemlord
Again?

------
froo
Perhaps they could rejig some of the algorithms used for Cuil ranking as a
defensive measure, just in case robots ever decide to rise up against us.

Think of it, just like Tic Tac Toe was used to confuse WOPR in Wargames, a
simple search on Cuil for anything could be used to confuse any Skynet
wannabes.

We make fun of these guys now, but they could be unrealised geniuses.

I salute you Cuil, in the fight against future robot overlords.

~~~
paraschopra
Even though I risk being downvoted, I am amused by froo's imagination. I hope
HNers agree that probability of this happening is non-zero, no matter how
small

