So I tried out cuil, the search engine founded by former Google employees that is meant to give more relevant returns by doing a semantic analysis of webpages. Meh. I tried several searches and none returned as reliable results as Google. I tried a couple vanity searches (natch), some research related searches, some searches for friends and acquaintances, some music searches. In each case, my target was on the first page of Google’s results, but rarely found at all by Cuil and, when found, buried in page after page of extraneous results. That is when the server was responding. Not a good showing on launch day for the semantic search engine.
Still maybe things will improve. I hope so. It would be good to have more, and different, research tools on the web. The question is will they survive the ill will generated from a wobbly first day long enough to improve things.
Update: Here is the BBC’s take, and Language Log’s.
Post a Comment