Scobleizer - Latest Comments in Cuil: Why I’m trying to get off of the PR bandwagon…

Re: Cuil: Why I’m trying to get off of the PR bandwagon…

RoJo — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 16:01:53 -0000

Fair is fair and Cuil is fairly cool and the media hoopla on the Cuil launch is well deserved and totally understandable (even if a bit harsh). After all, Cuil was built by a team of top-notch ex-Google engineers. But did you know that another new search engine -- built by a team of top-notch ex-Google users -- has surpassed Cuil in traffic this month? And with nary a lick of media love. Check out NeXplore Search (www.NeXplore.com) vs. Cuil (www.cuil.com) for the month of September using whatever website traffic comparison tool you prefer -- Google Trends, Alexa, Compete, etc. Cuil’s focus -- more algorithmic complexity. NeXplore’s focus -- a more visually engaging and productive search results page. Seems pretty clear which approach real folk prefer...

Re: Cuil: Why I’m trying to get off of the PR bandwagon…

Connie — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 23:01:56 -0000

I didn't care for Cuil. I don't care about the number of results as long as I get what I'm looking for....and that didn't happen with Cuil.

altsearchengines.com mentioned a new search engine that is supposed to give you exactly what you're looking for (thus the name, UbExact).

Fire Fox web developer tools are pretty cool.

Re: Cuil: Why I’m trying to get off of the PR bandwagon…

Paul Durman — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:00:50 -0000

Interesting post but I'm not sure how you can break out of the tyranny you describe:

"See, if you want to earn links and attention in this world you’ve got to be first, or at least among the first articles to go out. I’ve seen this time and time again. I call it the Techmeme game.

"But it affects Digg and Reddit and FriendFeed, too. The stories that got discussed the most on those were usually among the first crowd."

In a world in which news, and particularly tech news, is distributed globally almost instantaneously, there is a high premium on the first dramatic take or analysis. A more considered view might be better and more accurate but, hey, who's got time for that?

In the UK, this phenomenon - the overwhelming importance of impact - was nailed by Tony Blair, of all people

http://image.guardian.co.uk...

... and was more recently discussed by his former PR chief Alastair Campbell:

http://www.independent.co.u...

Re: Cuil: Why I’m trying to get off of the PR bandwagon…

vijay — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 00:30:52 -0000

seems to be cuil is correcting their mistake. i felt they launched the website without fulfilling the basic requirements.Couple of days back a serach for "microsoft .net " returned 0 results as their search engine does not recognize "."(period) . today i found it resolved.

Re: Cuil: Why I’m trying to get off of the PR bandwagon…

Vectorpedia(Rick) — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 16:46:54 -0000

Time will tell.........its too early to make a judgement call.................

Re: Cuil: Why I’m trying to get off of the PR bandwagon…

Brian Heys — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 02:23:12 -0000

I think your move away from the PR bandwagon is a very smart one. When I tried running my own 'tech blog' for about eight months last year, one of the reasons I stopped was that feeling of being on the eternal PR treadmill.

I lost my voice, became like everybody else, and for me, the fun quickly drained out of blogging about tech. When the fun went, the enthusiasm went after it, so I quit the blog, and stopped reading all others in that genre.

A few weeks ago, I came back to yours out of curiosity, just in time to see you go through your latest crisis, and I sympathised, and started reading again to see how you tackled what I'd already been through.

I like the new angle - good luck with it!

Re: Cuil: Why I’m trying to get off of the PR bandwagon…

Mauro — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 23:54:44 -0000

Uhhh... I don't like Cuil (or Ciul, or... whatever!)

The say that "Cuil searches more pages on the Web than anyone else"... and i din't see my websites yet!

So.... i think i'll return to google world again!

eheh

Re: Cuil: Why I’m trying to get off of the PR bandwagon…

steveballmer — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 01:26:25 -0000

It's simply how business is done!

Re: Cuil: Why I’m trying to get off of the PR bandwagon…

c4chaos — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 19:09:31 -0000

kudos to you for telling it like it is. i'm glad to hear you doing the straight talk :) btw, thanks for bringing Evernote to my attention. i've been trying it out for a couple of days now. as to your question:

"Anyway, help us all get off the PR bandwagon. What are you passionate about? If you could go anywhere in the world and meet with any geek, executive, or company, who would it be?"

i'd like to hear more about the tech-wizards and geeks who are addressing our ailing broadband infrastructure -- http://www.techcrunchit.com...

kick ass and be still.

Re: Cuil: Why I’m trying to get off of the PR bandwagon…

Nikolas Woischnik — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 03:59:51 -0000

How come comments posted well after mine are already online, while mine are still "awaiting moderation"? A blogger can handle constructive criticism, right?

Re: Cuil: Why I’m trying to get off of the PR bandwagon…

poetslife — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 22:16:04 -0000

http://www.aquacity.sk/

Talk about the most green resort in the world.

Re: Cuil: Why I’m trying to get off of the PR bandwagon…

Techlusive — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 22:13:58 -0000

http://www.wired.com/techbi...

"When Page and Brin first moved into the garage, Google had just been incorporated with a bankroll of $1 million raised from a handful of investors."

Smart people post y2000 want security, that's the problem. Cuil isn't going to bankroll your 401k, and that's why you don't see Googles any longer. Period.

Blaine Cooke took the solid paycheck at Yahoo, and I can't blame him.

Re: Cuil: Why I’m trying to get off of the PR bandwagon…

Techlusive — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 22:10:38 -0000

"Think about that. How much money does that take to build out? Hint: a lot more than $30 million that was invested in Cuil."

Heck yeah you could. These people are lazy and stupid. They happen to be rich too.

Re: Cuil: Why I’m trying to get off of the PR bandwagon…

marybaum — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 22:06:12 -0000

I love Evernote! I downloaded it from the App store thinking it would be a good tool for my 12-year-old son to use for writing down homework assignments (and for me to keep tabs on them with the automatic syncing). Instead it's my new best friend! (At least until I find I have a gig's worth of old meeting notes on my phone . . .)

BTW -- want to get a blank stare fast? Use the word 'cloud' in a conversation with normal people.

Here's someone I think you'd love interviewing: Harry Webber. (Disclosure: I'm working with him on something called the Institute for the Advanced Practice of Advertising, a nonprofit think tank we're recruiting ad people for.)

Harry is a traditional ad guy -- he's in the Clio Awards Hall of Fame for lines like "A mind is a terrible thing to waste." But he's also a very solid web 2.0 guy, so he sits exactly at the crossroads of old and new communications. Here's a post from his weekly column that shows the contrast between old and new: http://www.madisonavenew.co...

Re: Cuil: Why I’m trying to get off of the PR bandwagon…

@JoeHobot — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:18:02 -0000

Robert F** em all! I am with you!

Re: Cuil: Why I’m trying to get off of the PR bandwagon…

Jason Preston — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 19:06:59 -0000

One of the areas that I think gets only a small amount of play from the tech sector is using the developments that are happening online to HELP journalism and newspapers instead of HURTING them.

It seems like everyone just takes it for granted that all new online technology is bad for newspapers. That's hardly the case.

I'd love to talk to almost anyone at the New York Times about how they are expanding and experimenting with technology. I'm sure there are tons of tech startups who are working on projects that will also help newspapers, and I'd like to see which companies those are and what they're working on.

I feel like it's time to move past the "OMG newspapers are screwed!" stage and move on to the "look at these challenges and how can we solve them?" stage...

Re: Cuil: Why I’m trying to get off of the PR bandwagon…

Dan — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 18:15:45 -0000

I hate how people seem to just blog something and praise it, just because its new and they got an inside scoop. So many wannabes are so desperate for traffic, that they'll shill for anyone who gives them an early line on a story.

Cuil is awful, I've tried it, the results it returns are pretty damn useless, I find it so hard to process the results because it generates massive previews, rather than simply the name of the result, and the whole thing just smacks of "our-designer-learnt-javascript-last-night-so-now-everything-moves-if-you-mouse-over-it"

Re: Cuil: Why I’m trying to get off of the PR bandwagon…

Tom Schavo — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:47:39 -0000

well, the feel of the author is right. I have been trying to work on my sisters website to bring it up in PR, but google plays strange games. Everything that it wants is been done, yet it drops of the PR in no time.

No doubt if huge companies can get effected, like what u said , then we are nothing!

Re: Cuil: Why I’m trying to get off of the PR bandwagon…

Larry Marsh — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 14:18:54 -0000

There are some blogs that I subscribe to that no one reads and these guys are putting their heart out. Scott Beale linked to http://dailytechtalk.com the other day and I'm hooked.

Re: Cuil: Why I’m trying to get off of the PR bandwagon…

Andy Oliver — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 13:53:58 -0000

Regarding Cuil, an interesting communications / PR challenge for the team is to convince users in France it doesn't sound like 'couille' which is, er, shall we say not polite language in French for the male genitalia, and in certain contexts can mean a screw-up or cock-up...ah the beauty of global branding!

Re: Cuil: Why I’m trying to get off of the PR bandwagon…

Harsch — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 11:35:12 -0000

Why the tech bloggers hyped Cuil without trying it is beyond me.

What excites me is the prospect of competing with search engines without launching a search engine.

A user is essentially trying to gain access to relevant information / resources. Submitting search strings and manually inspecting returned results is one way but surely there must be other ways.

The group that figures this out may be able to topple the big guys without the need for half a million servers.

Re: Cuil: Why I’m trying to get off of the PR bandwagon…

Technology — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 11:13:57 -0000

At first I thought this is about PageRank lol

No matter what every body says I think any competition is a good thing. You see Cuil search results may be bad but it will take time to improve. Any body remember Google in its early days?

Google has become a monopoly and it's time they face the music like Microsoft.

And regarding size of the company, well no company starts with $10 billion investment. It's not possible. They key is to increase investment gradually which Google did and which Cuil and every other competitor will do. It's simply not possible to match the size of Google from start.

Give Cuil some time, if it still fails then move on and wait for someone else.

Re: Cuil: Why I’m trying to get off of the PR bandwagon…

LeeBautista — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 11:10:06 -0000

All the PR and hype we, as technologist, receive is part of the social game. Honestly, even if we all move to SocialMedian to take control and pull our own topics of discussion; inherently as a techie we will stiff be miffed when someone else is talking about something we've never heard of (Cuil).

We're being pushed news because we're early adopters and because we buy stuff. $299.00 stuff. The rest of the world does not care what we're doing.

In the least, this hype is bearable. I see the sports fellows in the office talking about Fantasy Football. Now there's some passion! I just smile while I walk away.

Re: Cuil: Why I’m trying to get off of the PR bandwagon…

Andrew Eglinton — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 08:59:42 -0000

The problem is Robert, that hype has become a veritable media language that anyone connected to the Internet or mainstream TV has become well versed in.

You've probably already noticed that the content of popular stories tends to be less important than the idea of the story's popularity itself.

Hype is a type of system, it has a structure, patterns and obeys laws like other systems. Few people except the people at the center of hype benefit from the phenomenon and it is too short lived to devote any serious part of your life to.

The better plan is to focus on doing solid work. Hype will always take care of itself.

Re: Cuil: Why I’m trying to get off of the PR bandwagon…

Nikolas Woischnik — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 08:52:39 -0000

Just checked out your Google Reader feed and must give you credit on that one! Much more substance if you ask me. Why dont you make your blog resemble your Google Reader more?