Cuil has been a stealth search engine for quite some time; comprised of a few ex-Googlers, the new search engine is supposed to deliver the most relevant results and is supposed to run more efficiently on the back end.  There are a lot of things that make Cuil different, so let’s get right into it. Unlike most search results that you may be familiar with across the web, Cuil returns a 3 column results page.  I decided to do a search for my name to see what would come up.

What’s interesting about this result is that my blog page doesn’t show up, yet my twitter and linkedin profiles do, not quite sure how this is more relevant than Google’s search result but…ok.  Chris Brogan and Louis Gray have the same problem.  The index is apparently over 12 billion pages, myself and many others just happen to not make up that index. There are a few things I do like about Cuil such as their tabs and drill down by category.  Both of these can been on the Cuil feature page, or you can try doing a search on something yourself.  Funny thing is that the drill down box does not always appear, for example, doing a search for Jacob Morgan did not yield any category drill down box. The advanced search commands that Google offers also come in handy, for example the “intitle, inanchor, allintitle,” etc. commands.  No word yet on whether or not Cuil will support such commands. Cuil still has a lot of cleaning up to do and in fact has recently been the topic of the tech industry for it’s somewhat botched attempt at a launch, check out the screen I got when doing a search for my name.

I still don’t know if I will be using Cuil especially since I am so used to the Google search results.  When launching a new product or service that offers “different” results, it’s a bit harder to gain traction when people are already used to a particular way of doing something. So is Cuil going to be a Google killer?  Eh, not yet, is it cool?  it could be, once they clean up their index a bit and put in a few missing results :)  I know it gives “different” results but come on, when someone searches for their name it should show up dontcha think? What do you think of Cuil?

Thanks for reading check out these articles on Cuil as well

The official Cuil press release

Cuil on Techcrunch

Cuil shows how to launch a search engine (webware)

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As many of you know, Jason Calacanis recently threw in the blogging towel and decided to limit his conversations to 750 newsletter subscribers.  I know several people were not able to sign up for his newsletter (don’t even know if it’s still available), so I decided to put up his most recent one here.  I’m sure this is all part of his master plan to get other folks to spread the content for him but oh well.  I’m not going to share all of his newsletters, but the most recent one deals with mahalo, knol, and wikipedia.  I thought it was interesting so here it is:
Is Google a Content Company?
————————-
For the past week, I’ve been fielding calls about Google’s new content
play, called Knol, “killing” Mahalo. Knol stands for “unit of
Knowledge” and it’s a very well-designed Wikipedia/Mahalo style
content publishing play. It’s very similar to the New York Times’
forgotten About.com, Seth Godin’s spam-filled Squidoo, the flawed but
fascinating Wikipedia, and of course my new project Mahalo.com

Four important point about Google Knol to put it in context:

1. Like Wikipedia, users create Wikipedia-style articles on Knol about
various topics.
2. Unlike Wikipedia, and very much like Squidoo, users can create
multiple pages on the same subject.
3. Authors can put Google’s advertising on these pages and make money.
4. Google is indexing these pages amazingly high in their search results.

This is a real change from last year when we launched Mahalo at the
WSJ D conference. At that point everyone asked us, after comparing our
superior search results (when we have one!) to Google’s, if we were
going to “kill” Google. Note: I would never engage that line of
thinking because I’ve always seen Google as the modern day operating
system, and our job to work within their framework.

Their operating system is search results, and About.com,
HowThingsWork.com, digg.com, NYTimes.com, Engadget.com, etc. are all
applications in that operating system. Our job is to create the best
possible products that operate–aka rank–as well as possible with
Google’s OS.

Why all the focus on death?
——————————
The life of a startup CEO dealing with the rabid but sometime naive
blogosphere is one of extremes. You’re killing or you’re killed,
you’re the shinny new object or yesterday’s news. You can couple the
link-bait based blogosphere with main-stream media journalists who,
instead of acting like the voice of reason and “sticking to what got
them there,” have taken the link-baiting bait. The MSM has had to
incorporate the flame warring, rumor mongering and link-baiting ethos
in order to keep up in the page-view cold war.

This is either the shot in the arm MSM needs to compete, or they’re
chasing the blogosphere Thelma and Louise-style off a cliff. Time will
tell I suppose.

Anyway, Facebook has had crushing success while MySpace continues to
grow. Apple is hitting the ball out of the park while Microsoft
continues to set sales records while fumbling into various markets. If
Microsoft and Apple, MySpace and Facebook, and a Coke and Pepsi can’t
kill each other why is everyone obsessed with death?

Well, because Microsoft did kill Lotus, Netscape and thousands of
other software companies when they decided that the operating system
just wasn’t enough.

Knol: Google becomes a publisher
—————————–
Now, I want to believe David Eun, Google’s head of partnership, when
he says they are not in the content business. David was hired from
Time Warner to be the easy going, friendly face of Google to the
content players of the world in the heat of the dual disasters of
YouTube’s copyright problems and Google’s “we’re gonna scan your books
with or without your permission” absurdity.

Last year in an interview he said:

“The biggest misconception is that they (content companies) fear
Google has aspirations to become a media company, meaning that we
would produce and own content that would compete against theirs.
That’s a major misconception. We don’t produce our own content. In
fact, we see ourselves as a platform for our partners that do.”

On one level, I believe that the Google leadership does not want to be
in the content business, but I think they’ve diluted themselves into
an odd definition of what it means to be a content company.

Let’s run a test: what is the role of a content publisher?

1. Secure talent
2. Distribute their work
3. Monetize that work
4. Pay the content creator for their work
5. Build a library of that work for future monetization

So, if you’re the New York Times or Wall Street Journal you:

1. Hire John Markoff and Walt Mossberg (on staff)
2. Distribute their technology reportage
3. Sell advertising against that reportage
4. Pay Markoff and Mossberg
5. Create an archive on NYTIMES.com and WSJ.com of their work.

Let’s run Google’s Knol through this same process:

1. Hire writers (on contingency) — check
2. Distribute these pages in Google’s search results — check
3. Sell advertising against it in the form of AdSense — check
4. Pay the writers via AdSense split — check
5. Create an archive on Knol for future monetization — check

Any objective person would look at these two cases and say that the
only difference is that Google hires folks on a revenue split basis
and content companies pay people up front. Except of course, About.com
is paying folks partially on spec.

Google believes because they don’t own the content that they are not
in the content business. Nice try, but no, that’s not how it works. If
you pay writers, distribute their work, and create a library of their
work you are–in no uncertain terms–a publisher.

Google-dependent businesses
———————–
There is a huge debate in the Valley today as to the value of
Google-dependant business. Many of the biggest and best companies
today have Google as their top source of traffic. Reportedly digg is
50% Google traffic, About.com 85%, and Wikipedia 70% Google traffic.
That means that people don’t go to these sites directly, as much as
they go to Google and do a search and click on their result.

This means Google makes money from you while you are on their search
results, but only makes money on the second click if the content
provider has put Google Adsense on their pages. Some do, many don’t.

It seems that Google, the greatest web-business ever created, is not
satisfied with owning over 70% of search–now they want to own the
first couple of pages in their search results. So, if you’re digg.com,
About.com, NYTimes.com, and Wikipedia you’re faced with not only being
traffic-dependant on Google, you’re now competing with them for the
traffic within their search result.

Ouch.

This feels exactly like what Microsoft did to its application vendors.
Microsoft convinced folks to build WordStar, WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3,
and Quattro Pro for their operating system. They grew that business
together until the point that Microsoft had massive market-share in
operating systems–then Microsoft pulled the rug out from under the
3rd party application vendors.

The result? The streets were littered with dead software companies,
Microsoft faced massive lawsuits, and the industry became stagnant
until the Internet shook things up again two decades later.

Are we facing the same thing on the web today?

Can we trust Google?
————————–
I’ve got a lot of friends at Google, and I’ve worked with and defended
them for years. They’ve been an amazing partner to me. The revenue
from Google Adsense reached over one million a year for Weblogs, Inc.
when we were still a private company. The $4,000 a day we were making
paid our bloggers salaries and gave me the biggest win of my life.

In other words, I’m a “Google man.” I want to believe Google… I love
the Google. The Google has been, very, very good to me.

Now, Google says they will do no evil and since I’ve worked with their
team across three companies I tend to believe them. However, with the
launch of Google Knol I feel like they are not being totally up front
with us–their partners. It feels like they’ve stabbed us in the back
to be honest. I’m not the only one who feels this way–even if I’m the
only one stupid enough to say it.

If Google is going to be in the content business and compete for the
top ranking in the operating system they control why not be honest
about it? Why not have David Eun say, “listen, we’re experimenting
with content and we want you to be involved in it. Put your content in
Knol!”

Frankly, it’s insulting to say you’re not in the content business and
then launch Knol and compete with content companies for their authors,
users, and placement in the rankings that you control.

For the record, dishonesty falls under evil in my book. Intellectual
dishonesty? Well, that’s on the bubble as they say.

Cry babies or canaries in the coal mine?
——————————

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A couple of interesting things have come out of Google recently. The first is that Google announced they are now processing over 1 trillion Urls! That’s a lot of web pages. The main problem that Google and the other search engines are going to continuously face is how to bring up the most relevant pages and how to get rid of the spam. Google has around 70% market share and considering that “Google” is now an official word in the dictionary, I would say that Google is doing quite well.  Of course the future of search still has a long way to go, now we are seeing more and more niche search sites, as well as visual search engines such as searchme, springing up from the woodwork.  It seems that even if a new search engine ever did come along, Google would just buy them out, or send assassins to destroy the company, knowing Google, they can make that happen.  The founders are Russian and I’m betting they have some KGB connections…

The second piece of news that has come out from Google is their acquisition of Digg…or not. A few days ago the word on the street was that Digg was in final stages of negotiation to sell to Google for 200 million dollars. Today Michael Arrington from Techcrunch announced that Google has walked away from the deal cold turkey, all I have to say is, wow that must really suck. Can you imagine being co founder Kevin Rose or CEO Jay Adelson, thinking that you are going to get a cool 200 million for your company, only to find out that the company that wanted to purchase you changed their mind?  Not sure why Google did not purchase Digg but rumor has it that after the Google and Digg team met, Google didn’t feel there was a good fit, maybe it’s because Kevin Rose is just obsessed with tea?…who knows.  Looks like Digg is going to have to go back out there and try to sell to someone else, heck maybe I should start negotiations with Digg hmmm?  Do I hear 5k?

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Not too long ago I wrote about Randy Pausch and how he has changed the life of millions of people; it is with a heavy heart that I say, Randy has died today.  Randy has made amazing contributions to Carnegie Mellon and more importantly has made amazing contributions to people.  His “last lecture” has inspired people to live better lives.  According to Randy, “we don’t beat the Reaper by living longer. We beat the Reaper by living well.”  This was his philosophy and this is how we should all live.

I started following Randy’s updates on his site several months ago and have always been rooting for him from the sidelines.  He has really inspired me to try to live a better life, to always put family and friends above anything else, and to “live well.”  I’m still fairly young (25) but I plan to take what I have learned from Randy and apply it to the rest of my life.  My heart goes out to all of his family members and friends and my heart goes out to all of us, for we have truly lost a philanthropist, an inspirational leader, and a great man.

There is actually a great article written about Randy that can be found here.

As my own personal tribute to Randy I promise to make a few changes in my life:

• put friends and family first above anything else
• spend less time worrying about material things
• spend more time thinking about the positive things in life
• live life with more kindness in my heart
• try to be more patient
• try to help others

I have riposted his videos below and encourage everyone to watch them.

Randy Pausch, the last lecture at Carnegie Mellon

Randy Pausch an Oprah, Shorter Version of the Last Lecture

Randy Pausch on Time Management

“Every man dies - Not every man really lives”

~William Ross Wallace

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photo credit $ydney

100 years ago if you were to show someone an iphone you would be considered some sort of mystical being or god (even though being the only one in the world with an iphone is not that practical). Today you show someone an iphone and it’s still a neat device but it’s almost expected. Think about how far we have come with technology. Remember the old video game systems like Nintendo or Atari? There is no way you can compare that to today’s Xbox 360 or PS3. What about computers? Remember that old computer you used to have with the little “turbo” button to help speed it up? What about that 56k dial up modem you used to have? Now we have blazing speeds that allow you to stream and download virtually anything.

We have made tremendous progress in the world of technology but where do you think it’s headed? Think about how “connected” everyone is right now, the more and more “connected” we get the more and more artificial we can be. I mean, now everyone has a phone/pda/laptop, etc. In 100 years are we going to be born or implanted with iphones or tech devices? Are even going to have to speak to communicate or will we just be able to look at each other and have circuits register our thoughts? Are games going to be 3d virtual reality games that simulate the same killing or fighting that we are used to now? Is the internet going to be a ubiquitous blanket across the world, where all you need to do is turn on a laptop to “plug in?” What are the relationships going to be like, will we still go out for coffee with our friends and will we still have wine tastings and house warming parties?

Now, if you own a PS3 you don’t even need to move to go rent a movie, you can order directly from your system. If you want to do grocery shopping you don’t need to go to the supermarket, you order it online. If you want to chat with someone or have a meeting you no longer need a physical presence, you can do so on skype. If you want to buy a cd you can get one via torrent, stream it, or just buy it online and have it delivered to you. If you want to get good you don’t need to go to a restaurant, you can order it online and have it brought to your door. I can’t help but think of that scene in Wall-E where all the humans become these large immobile objects…you know the scene.

With the emphasis on being “connected” we may actually become disconnected. I don’t know what the future of technology will be like or what web 3.0, 4.0 or 5.0 will look like but I hope 200 years from now when we look back we won’t be saying “wow, I wish we could go back to web 2.0.”

The reality is that it’s so hard for us to see where we are going, in fact we can’t because we are not the observers, we are the participants. Think about being in a relationship, have you ever had a friend of yours tell you “I’m so glad you broke up with him/her you guys were not a good fit and he/she was crazy!” When you are in a relationship you can’t see what other’s see, you are not the observer and therefore you are limited in perspective and thought. You are constrained to see and believe in what you are engaged in, the same goes for everyone else. I can see what others can’t and others and others can see what I can’t, but collectively we are blind, we are all in a relationship with technology and with the world as a whole and it doesn’t matter how hard we try to see things as observers, we can’t. This is a type of paradox we live in, a paradox in which we can create almost anything yet see nothing.

So I ask you, where do you think technology is headed? What do you think will happen in 100/200 years and beyond?

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