Cuil launches Cpedia – and fails again
Cuil failed to set the world alight with its search engine back in 2008. Now, in 2010, it’s trying again, this time with Cpedia, a cross between a search engine and an online encyclopedia. Well, at least that’s the idea. The reality is somewhat less intoxicating.
In 2008, a new startup by ex-employees of Google, was launched. Its name was (and still is) Cuil, and is a search engine described (at least before launch) as a potential Google killer.
This turned out to be far from the truth. In fact, Cuil killed nothing but its own credibility by launching before it was ready for public scrutiny. The results garnered from Cuil were frankly awful, and most people quickly reverted back to using Google. Cuil still exists though you wouldn’t know that from the amount of publicity it’s got in the past couple of years. Until now.
Proving lightning can strike twice in the same place, Cuil has launched a new search effort, this time called Cpedia. As the name suggests, it owes more to Wikipedia than Google, although the company is quick to distances itself from the former.
Cpedia is, in essence, Cuil search results delivered in an encyclopedic style. An automated Wikipedia, if you will. The big problem is automation doesn’t always work, and that’s the case with Cpedia.
Cpedia draws on various Web sources for the search query and delivers the results in the form of a report. But that leads to some truly bizarre stream of consciousness style entries which are far from being accurate or insightful on the requested topic.
Take my entry, for example. Nearly all the sources are articles I’ve written for various sites and blogs over the years, including Blorge. Which is fine except there’s nothing actually about me, just about the subjects I’ve opined about. Worryingly, I’ve also been credited with being various people, including Barack Obama:
His [Dave Parrack's] focus has shifted from getting elected to running the country.
And Michael Jackson:
He [Dave Parrack] suffered a heart attack at around 12pm midday at his Holmby Hills home in Los Angeles, and was taken to UCLA hospital after falling into a coma.
Cpedia is listed as being in alpha at the moment, so it could improve. But why is it open to the public in such an unfinished and sloppy state? It clearly isn’t ready, and it means the site will get ridiculed, written off, and then forgotten, just like Cuil itself was.
My advice to the Cuil team for the future is to make sure a product is ready for public scrutiny before launching it on the Web.
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May 11th, 2011
hey
i don’t know who you are, and i won’t google or yahoo or bing or altavista or anything you. but it would be nice if i could find out about you, should i care to look into you, from somebody else than google (yes, lower case). and cpedia would be good, too, if it existed. why ridicule attempts? fight the cocksuckers who try to steal your life and turn you into an easy-to-rip-off, sort-of-living, zombie.
until you do anything constructive,
bye.