Cu-cuil. Alright.

Well since every writer and blogger in North America is writing about it, I might as well jump in and compile a few thoughts on this timely topic.

How Cuil isn’t so hot.

A few former Google employees decide to challenge the king and create a search engine of their own. Days leading up to its launch, the marketing guys at Cuil (pronounced “cool” if you can believe it) go full throttle, plugging their stories to every major media outlet. The $33 million investment state that they’ve indexed, or in order words, complied into their servers, more webpages than Google.

So here’s where they fail.

First, the order of the results are based on the amount of the site’s content, not the traffic. It’s great in theory, but the results so far have been extremely random. One blogger claims that the site didn’t index sites created in late May 2007 to June 2007, creating a gap in results.

Next, the images that populate next to each finding are so random and often have nothing to do with the results (I wonder how many times I can type the word results in this post).

Lastly, the name. As pointed out by commenters over at TechCrunch, there’s a reason why “cuil” doesn’t yield any results. Apparently, they’ve changed their name from Cuill to Cuil recently, after they’ve indexed their own pages. If you try searching Cuill, you’ll see the pages and the old URL’s.

You can say their initial launch, which ended with an almost instant server crash, could be foreshadowing their future but I remain hopeful they’ll straighten things out. The interface is interesting and I like the idea of competition amoung companies (ahem), but if you’re going to blow smoke, you better make sure there’s a fire. Because when you’re dealing with the Interwebs,  startups can fly or flop in a day.

Also, the title of this post is a reference to an awesome internet video.

O Rly

As I was about to head out the door for work this morning, I turned on Citytv to check out the weather (I’m a jacket-loving guy and will wear one given any chance) only to discover something out of place. At the bottom of the screen, below the weather updates, there is a news ticker. I rarely pay much attention to these briefs, but one definitely stuck out.

“Facebook gets a new layout design and added features.”

I was instantly intrigued by something like a simple Facebook update (an update that I have yet to notice)  added to their news ticket. Facebook has indeed taken a life of its own, and does this ticker line mean that old school media outlets are finally realising the potency of web apps and social networking? Maybe.

Or maybe it was just a slow news day.

I’m betting on the latter, but I’m hoping for the first.

This reminds me a heck of a lot like this story in which a distinguishable iPhone image (with a tweak or two) was used to represent a mobile device . The incorporation of new technology and innovation into colloquial and traditional methods.

Wowzers.

Fancy

As a hip and tech-savvy 18-35 year old male I’d say I’m a regular user of Facebook more now than ever. That’s partially due to the fact that I’m away from my believed Toronto and friends, I and find social networks are the only real way to keep in touch with them. Recently, Facebook has added the ability for users to comment on just about everything on your profile page. The most interesting one is the ability to comment on someone’s status update directly under the newsfeed. This action reminds me a hell of a lot like Twitter and Friendfeed in which you can now post just about anything, (if you’re using a mobile phone with internet access) anywhere and expect to see people commenting about it.

Which brings me to the big picture.

If I could comment or post things anywhere instantaneously, I would. Calgary is full of character (to put it politely) and I’d, without a doubt, would take full advantage of publishing my sights and thoughts.

This brings me to the iPhone and Twitter apps. I knew about Twitter awhile ago and I knew the iPhone had the Twitter apps weeks ago, but I never felt the urge to do take advantage of it.

But lately, I’ve been seeing some funky things in Calgary and I’d like to take a photo or type a quick sentence and share it here or Facebook.

In conclusive, I will be looking into breaking my remaining two-year contract with Telus Mobility and will try to buy an iPhone… from Rogers. The Twitter thing wasn’t the deal-breaker, as the iPhone has a dozen of apps and features that I like, but it certainly would be useful to me now.

In fact, even if I didn’t have a contract blockade and was with something cheap like, I don’t know… Virgin Mobile or Voodoo, I’d still have trouble buying one because it still means that I’d be selling my soul to Rogers Communications.

I’ve been adamant about staying away from Rogers as much as I could. Their partial acquisition of the CHUM Network and previously the renaming of the Skydome (I’ll never call that field by any other name) have certainly shifted my perspective of Ted Rogers and his minions. And when I had internet customer service problems with them when I just moved to Calgary (they wouldn’t change ownership of the internet account… even though I was in a different province) it just fueled the fire.

However, since they pretty much own everything (outside of the teachers pension union) it’s always been a David versus Goliath struggle.

You win Rogers. You win. And I hate you for it.