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Cuil shows us how not to launch a search engine

5 points by nickb 18y ago

deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
raganwald 18y ago
If that is not the right way to launch, what does the author think is the right way to launch something that competes with Google? I suggest there is no such thing, that absolutely everything and anything you try will provoke someone's criticism. It's not like the author was comparing Cuil to Powerset, for example, and illustrating how Cuil failed where Powerset succeeded. Sure, the service seems to have a ways to go. Fine, and there's nothing wrong with saying so. But the title is the worst kind of armchair quarterbacking, all criticism with absolutely zero objectivity. I'd say the author has shown us how NOT to write a review: failing to compare Cuil to other startups competing with Google and failing to suggest what they ought to have done instead.
- gojomo 18y ago
  Agreed -- the piling-on criticism is unseemly. It's day 1 for an ambitious new entrant in a area that desperately needs alternatives. Whatever the problems, larger and older companies have had bigger breakdowns months or even years into their operation. Unfortunate is that Cuil's failure mode under load seems to be to return fewer or no results. Some commenters have thus gotten the impression that momentarily-broken results are in fact representative of Cuil's index coverage. With that in mind, a specific way they could have launched better would have been via stages/invites, with Cuil slowing the expansion of invites if load problems emerged. Even now, they could refuse some of the load in a less-frustrating way, by hiding the query box from some visitors, rather than making each submission a crapshoot -- "will I get any results this time?" Also: they should really start a blog where they can share the story of the launch from their perspective, in the coming days or weeks.
jfornear 18y ago
I wonder if Cuil really intended to attract this much attention so early. Everyone and their mother was talking about it. Kevin Rose twittered it, it was all over FF, and it made the front page of HN, Digg, reddit, TC, etc. They even had a story posted on drudge. That is a pretty ridiculous amount of traffic. I also tried 'Cuiling' myself and the results were pretty bad as well. It didn't even find the domain name of my site which shares my full name. http://viewzi.com http://viewzi.com is overlooked in this space imo.

5 points by nickb 18y ago

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

If that is not the right way to launch, what does the author think is the right way to launch something that competes with Google? I suggest there is no such thing, that absolutely everything and anything you try will provoke someone's criticism. It's not like the author was comparing Cuil to Powerset, for example, and illustrating how Cuil failed where Powerset succeeded. Sure, the service seems to have a ways to go. Fine, and there's nothing wrong with saying so. But the title is the worst kind of armchair quarterbacking, all criticism with absolutely zero objectivity. I'd say the author has shown us how NOT to write a review: failing to compare Cuil to other startups competing with Google and failing to suggest what they ought to have done instead.

gojomo 18y ago
Agreed -- the piling-on criticism is unseemly. It's day 1 for an ambitious new entrant in a area that desperately needs alternatives. Whatever the problems, larger and older companies have had bigger breakdowns months or even years into their operation. Unfortunate is that Cuil's failure mode under load seems to be to return fewer or no results. Some commenters have thus gotten the impression that momentarily-broken results are in fact representative of Cuil's index coverage. With that in mind, a specific way they could have launched better would have been via stages/invites, with Cuil slowing the expansion of invites if load problems emerged. Even now, they could refuse some of the load in a less-frustrating way, by hiding the query box from some visitors, rather than making each submission a crapshoot -- "will I get any results this time?" Also: they should really start a blog where they can share the story of the launch from their perspective, in the coming days or weeks.

jfornear 18y ago

I wonder if Cuil really intended to attract this much attention so early. Everyone and their mother was talking about it. Kevin Rose twittered it, it was all over FF, and it made the front page of HN, Digg, reddit, TC, etc. They even had a story posted on drudge. That is a pretty ridiculous amount of traffic. I also tried 'Cuiling' myself and the results were pretty bad as well. It didn't even find the domain name of my site which shares my full name. http://viewzi.com http://viewzi.com is overlooked in this space imo.