Cuil.com (pronounced ‘cool’ with an Irish twang) has been hyped as the new Google. It launched a few days back, and almost instantly suffered the downside of enlarged expectations.
For one, it didn’t work that often; you were greeted with a message explaining that the server was going through a mid-life crisis. And the results were less than enthralling (try a search for ‘cuil’ on Cuilcom – the search engine doesn’t know that it exists).
Still, early days. The evidence of the last 24 hours is that the ‘server sweating’ warnings have faded away, which gets over the largest hurdle.
That said, I’m not sure I can see any magic in the way Cuil does its stuff: the results are shown over two or three columns, which presents its own problems. And there are few options within the Preferences pane to customise your experience. One to watch, maybe, but Google can sleep safely for now.
