The Outsidr

I can’t remember the last time I have seen anything like this. Cuil (pronounced “cool”), a new search engine company based in Menlo Park, literally went from being unheard of to web-famous to “able Google competitor” to crucifixion in a matter of an hour. Perhaps all press is not good press after all. Founded by husband and wife duo Tom Costello (CEO), formerly of Google, and Anna Patterson (VP Engineering), Cuil had amassed pre-launch funding to the tune of $33mm and indexed over 120 billion web pages before it even opened its doors. The California company put together a very unique and interesting UI, a seemingly robust engine and a talented team with a collective rolodex thicker than War and Peace. Within 24 hours, Cuil had succeeded in attaining more blog coverage than any service in recent history. The image below is from Techmeme just a few moments ago:

Despite all that, it may already be doomed. Astoundingly peculiar search results, an unhealthy amount of down time and a nearly-unanimous “fail” from the blogosphere does not a success story make. What do I mean by “peculiar search results”? When the site does come back up, head on over and search “cuil”. Despite the onslaught of blogosphere attention and, well, the fact that this is the name of the very site you will be searching with, you won’t find a single relevant hit on the first page. Ouch.

I won’t go any further into my experiences while testing Cuil; why throw more kindling on a raging inferno? What I will say however is when a company tries to compete in a space dominated by multi-billion dollar giants, it had better bring something incredible to the table or appeal to a sizable niche. I don’t see either being the case in this instance and the stunning rush of negative press is quite likely going to be insurmountable. Hey, they can’t all be Twitter.