People like rising stars, but once they get to the top, everyone wants to dethrone the suckers. I remember when everyone loved Walmart. They were the amazing store everyone wanted in their hometown. People rallied around the stores waving the American flag. But then something happened. All of the sudden they went from a champion of the little guy to becoming "The Man". They went from suburbanites waving American flags to rednecks waving Confederate flags. What was the difference? They got TOO big, and people don't like that.
So is the story of Google. Everyone cheered for Google as it attempted to 'not be evil'. People were excited to see them take on the giant before them (Microsoft). Google is now the big company on the block and people are looking for the next David to slay the giant.
Introducing Cuil.com
Cuil.com has a lot going for them. It was founded by some ex-Googlers who raised nearly $30 million because they had a better way to search. After years of development, they have arrived. On Monday, July 28th 2008 they lauched with a big announcement. They search over 121 BILLION websites to get you the content you are looking for! Some estimates have that at over 3 times as many sites as Google searches. Cuil is getting a lot of press. Google even came out with a statement about Cuil on the Friday before it launched. I don't know what it said because I don't really care what it said.
I played with Cuil. My assessment? I think Cuil.bomb will last a while, but a lot of investors will lose a lot of money trying to keep it alive. What a crappy search engine. I did about a dozen searches ranging from "The Office Downloads" to "NPS". It doesn't matter how many sites you scour, if you return garbage, people won't use your search tool.
I use Google because it displays the results I'm looking for. I am not looking for a better search because Google works. I've tried many different search engines just to see what results come back and I always turn back to Google.
Cuil recieved a lot of press, but the press obviously didn't try to search with it.
