On July 28, 2008, I wrote the following about cuil:
Is cuil Name for New Search Engine Cool Enough?
Also on July 28, 2008 highly esteemed and well respected industry technology expert John C. Dvorak wrote the following in PCMagazine Online about cuil:
The New Cuil Search Engine Sucks
I thank John C. Dvorak for his valuable insight, stunning perfection, impeccable prose, usual accuracy, verbal economy, on-line alacrity, understanding of what we need and most of all for agreeing with me.
Copyright ©2008 DM Jackson - WebMarket West - All Rights Reserved.
Published by dj //
Limping into the Search Engine arena yesterday, new Search Engine cuil, pronounced cool, launched to much fanfare, sporadic outages and intermittent pages announcing that their, “servers are running a bit hot right now.”
Boasting 120 billion indexed pages, the cuil leadership team consisting of expatriate Google workers, Anna Patterson, Russel Power, Tom Costello and Louis Monier, promise Internet users that if big is Google then huge is cuil. However, initial criticism from well respected experts like Danny Sullivan over at Search Engine Land along with glow in the dark servers indicate this remains to be seen. In addition to hot servers, which are not cool, cuil has other features that may take some time for us to warm up to.
Call me quaint or call me simple, but when I enter the name of my own company in a search box, I really do prefer to see it pop-up as the top listing on the results page instead of listings for DUI Lawyers, Dubai real estate or what have you. Funny thing is, quaint or simple, so do all of my Search Engine Marketing clients… all of ‘em!
At least for now, this is going to be a real hard sell for the Search Marketing crowd. How does one respond to a corporate or professional client when cuil with their zippy state of the art Search Engine technology has a new algorithm that relates them to cabbages?
Apparently, we are not alone in placing value on accuracy over quantity. Numerous comments by those that have actually been able to get cuil search results have been unimpressive, to say the least. Our own test searches in what cuil executives tout as the world’s biggest index returned results that can best be described in polite terms as bizarre. Instead of seeing a typical list of related pages similar to those generated by MSN, Yahoo or Google, the too-cool cuil returns a non sequitur search train wreck that could pass for randomness at first glance. To fix this, cuil offers you, “helpful choices and suggestions until you find the page you want.”
Beats me how this is ever gonna be better than Google’s get it right the first time philosophy.
Copyright ©2008 DM Jackson - WebMarket West - All Rights Reserved.
Published by dj //
Posted on July 17th, 2008 in Marketing
An article at CNNMoney reports that Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) Chairman Roy Bostock and Chief Executive Jerry Yang blasted dissident shareholder Carl Icahn as a “corporate agitator” who would “strike any deal” with Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) to “get his money back quickly.”
As displeased as we are at WebMarket West to think that we all may soon have only two great marketing channels to work with instead of the three great we now have, blasting dissident shareholder’s is not going to win them any favor with the new regime.
Come on, Roy and Jer! Resign yourselves to the inevitable, like the rest of us are doing. Suck up to your new boss a bit and if you don’t have anything nice to say about Carl, don’t say anything at all. Or, at least don’t say anything that will upset the stockholders on the winning side.
Published by mikej //
What an Internet marketing concept! Make the very best blogging software possible and then give it away to anyone who wants it, for free! That’s right, we’re talking about WordPress, again.
Sure it’s already been done by others. Mark Andreessen gave away Netscape. Microsoft gave away the Internet Explorer browser (cough!). There are others.
Currently, the team at Ubuntu are giving away one of the finest Linux Desktop and Server distributions we’ve ever seen. We like Ubuntu so much, that except for one Windows system in our office used for some legacy applications, everything else is running on Ubuntu Linux. It should be mentioned that plans are already in the works to turn this remaining machine into a Linux box, too and run Windows XP in a virtual environment using VMware.
Of course, this comment would not be complete without mentioning the latest buzz about our favorite blogging tool.
WordPress 2.3 was released today. The tireless and dedicated team that support the WordPress Blog system have once again combed through their code to make fixes and enhancements that will amaze you, inform your visitors, keep your stuff secure, increase productivity and keep you blogging. Although it is free to use like the other great stuff already mentioned, the primary reason we use it for our blog here at WebMarket West is that it is the best!
Published by mikej //
Recent comments by Microsoft’s executive management have opened up a real can of worms and this time offended rather than entertained the open source community. It seems that a certain really big software company somewhere in the Pacific Northwest is being accused of using “Threat Marketing” not only to ensure their control of the desktop, but also to suppress public interest in the open source movement. The claim is that building bridges with other big companies like Novell, Dell and Samsung, will be good. The question is, how many bridges can you build and how far can you build them before they become trade restraining monopolies and pathological deceptions?
Alleging 235 documented instances of patent infringement, the giant software company in Redmond, Washington is being accused of using scare tactics to wrench control of Linux and other publicly licensed software from those who continue to work diligently to ensure it’s usefulness and success. Comments inviting Bill Gates to, “Sue me first”, are echoing throughout cyberspace and continue to attract media attention. One can only wonder what the outcome will be this time as proponents of both the open source community and the closed source community choose weapons to battle yet another round over free-use licensing versus paid-use licensing.
In an article by IT Week a Microsoft spokesperson was quoted as saying, “Our focus is on continuing to build bridges. Microsoft and Novell have already developed a solution that meets the needs of customers, furthers interoperability, and advances the interests of the industry as a whole.” The spokesperson went on to say, “Any customer that is concerned about Linux intellectual property issues needs only to obtain their open source subscriptions from Novell.” Great! One merely needs to obtain (buy?) from Microsoft’s approved source Novell, in order to run a non-patent infringing, untainted or legal Linux operating system that is already free for anyone to use under the terms of GNU General Public License. Huh? Where does this leave all of the other popular and free flavors of Linux?
While the folks over at Ubuntu are obviously delighted over the recent announcement of Dell’s intention to install Ubuntu Linux on their new computers, other news resources indicate that Michael Dell has already signed one of Microsoft’s bridge agreements. However, that agreement indicates Microsoft will sell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server certificates to Dell under an alliance between Microsoft and Novell. Preposterous as it sounds, does this mean that Novell subscriptions will be required by Microsoft for Dell to provide the Ubuntu Linux operating system pre-installed on their new computers? Michael Dell is running Ubuntu Linux 7.04 on his personal laptop and has been doing so since April. It is not clear at this point who’s permission, subscription or certificate he obtained in order to do this without being sued for patent infringement. Perhaps he is not, “concerned about Linux intellectual property issues.” Or, maybe he is siding with other-high visibility individuals who take exception to Microsoft’s position.
Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu recently shared his opinion by providing timely comments regarding software patent issues and blogged, “In short, Microsoft will lose a patent trench war if they start one, and I’m sure that cooler heads in Redmond know that.”
© 2007 DM Jackson - All rights reserved
Published by dj //
Mountain View California based Google is apparently willing to share even more information than previously regarding what the curious are searching for by providing a list of the 100 hottest topics queried on the Internet’s leading search engine. Available now, the new Hot Trends rankings reveal day-to-day information on the hottest search terms that Google has been providing Internet searchers.
Referring to the Google Trends project he worked on, Amit Patel, a Google software engineer said, “It’s very entertaining and it’s very addictive.” Of course, Search Engine Marketing specialists may desire more than entertainment or to feed an addiction when perusing the daily trends of Google searchers.
A word of caution here, although Google claims that the improvements will enable users to analyze search terms within sub-regions, the results are edited. That said, here’s the link to Google Trends and here’s one for the new Hot Trends Top 100
Published by dj //
According to a story this morning in the New York Post, Microsoft Corporation may be crafting a $50 billion dollar deal to buy it’s sometimes ally and ofttimes competitor, Yahoo. Although the Wall Street Journal quickly reported that the discussion between the two leviathan corporations are in very preliminary stages, a merger may be likely, regardless of the speculative nature of this morning’s news.
Various Internet pundits have chimed-in on this most recent mega-merger. Some claim that this is a natural paring to be expected as jockeying for top position in the Internet Search industry continues. Others see it as a bad marriage of two terribly mismatched corporate cultures, one highly focused on the Internet and the other highly focused on buying anyone that they can’t outmaneuver. One thing is for sure, combining these two still puts them in second place relative to the gargantuan search company, Google Corporation.
If anyone remembers that this past March, Microsoft’s Chief of Search Technology, Christopher Payne, announced his resignation and departure to pursue, “other interests”, then the pride of Redmond’s move may be seen by some as, “to be expected”. However, I don’t recall hearing about anyone hanging a “For Sale” sign on Jerry Yang’s or David Filo’s front door as some Internet visionaries seem to imply. Further, if this should come to pass, what’s next? Are we heading toward only one Really Big Search Engine (RBSE), with only one set of results?
Welcome to Web 3.0 aka., the “OnlyNet”
© 2007 DM Jackson - All rights reserved
Published by dj //
Over the years, biographers, journalists, contemporary “big thinkers” and writers like me have commented on the incredible genius of the renowned theoretical physicist Albert Einstein. How did he do it? What made him tick? Was he from another planet or from another time?
In addition to the “Theory of Relativity”, he left the rest of us a wonderful legacy of thought provoking and memorable statements. You can find books, t-shirts and even web sites full of his sayings. I have a t-shirt that has a picture of Einstein sticking his tongue out with the saying, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” While this is one of my favorite Einstein quotes, there are others.
Einstein has been quoted as saying, “Genius is ninety percent sweat.” Like everything else about relativity, this applies to everything else, even the Internet! It’s important to remember because for the most part, those halcyon days of seemingly genius ideas leading to nearly instant on-line success are mostly over. Sweat is what you must do in order to become an Internet genius nowadays. That is of course, if you really want to succeed.
Published by dj //
Chris Payne, corporate vice president for Microsoft’s Live Search initiative, is leaving the company to, “pursue other interests”. Although a Microsoft spokesperson declined to comment and Mr. Payne was not available, it is doubtful that his departure will be lamented.
Microsoft’s search site has performed poorly under Payne’s leadership, loosing market share since the company launched its highly touted Search Engine, early in 2005. This attempt to challenge the leviathan in search, Google, while noble in its intent to provide the Internet with an additional choice in search results, has netted Redmond pretty close to nothing at the moment.
Payne went on record in a 2006 interview with the Seattle Post Intelligencer acknowledging that Microsoft needed to show a significant improvement in it’s search market share. He was quoted as saying, “I’m hoping this does turn it around,” and, “We believe that it’s still very early in search… that there’s still significant room for differentiation.”
Well, apparently no one in Redmond has sufficient sense of humor to see that the flat growth in search query volume on Microsoft’s Live Search engine has,”turned around” or “significantly differentiated” it while Google and Yahoo search volume have risen by 33 percent and 22 percent, respectively during the same time period, according to Nielsen NetRatings data.
A replacement has not yet been announced.
Published by dj //
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