Ex-Google Employee’s Play It “Cuil”!

Article By: Josh Marmer (Josh@aclion.com)

Who wants to take on the big boys? Microsoft and Yahoo have tried to partner up to challenge them – and there are many other really cool search engines who have a neat gimmick or logo that vertically target, horizontally target, industry target, subject matter target, Target, Walmart, and more. So what makes this Cuil (pronounced Cool) search engine think they can really be bigger and better than the biggest and baddest boys on the block? Well, they aren’t just upping the GPA requirement it takes to qualify to get an interview…
Cuil is a new search engine launched by ex-Googlers – that alone turns the heads of most internet savvy users. Mention Google, and it’s a good start. Add to that $33 million in two rounds of funding from Greylock & Tugboat Ventures and Madrone Capital Partners, and they look like there’s something good going on.
So how is Cuil different? Size – it boasts 120 Billion webpages indexed in their “world wide web” – about triple that of Google. So Cuil is in fact, bigger. Since Cuil does not rank based on popularity of clicks, but more heavily on relevant content, there is no need for them (at this point) to store personal usage history. So, Cuil is, it claims, safer.
Also there are neat tabs, drilldown menus to breakdown categories, and rollover definitions – so it may actually be “cooler.” Also, they have an awesome logo, black background on the homepage, and aesthetically pretty pages…but that’s just me. I did always like the pictures.
So my first few test searches have been a great experience, but it remains to be seen if the appeal of Cuil will hold with the public who somehow magnetically drew to Google faster that the Millenium Falcon got pulled toward the DeathStar by the tractor beam. In fact, once I was done surfing on Cuil – I went right back to my Google Toolbar to look for a restaurant for my wife and I to go to tonight.
We’ll see. A more user friendly, more relevant engine will be welcomed – but it will need to pull some great results from that 120 Billion index in order to sway the public’s habits. Exciting – let’s see what happens. Will we use it? Will Google just buy it? And another question that comes to mind: Why didn’t they just buy www.cool.com? Maybe making new words is part of the gig…