Practice Management

It is pronounced "cool", and it is the new Internet search engine of Anna Patterson. 

Her last Internet search engine was so impressive that industry leader Google bought the technology in 2004 to upgrade its own system.  She now thinks she has invented an even better search engine with Cuil.  She claims its search index spans 120 billion Web pages, more than Google.  Google disagrees.

I am not so sure about cruil.  I got online this morning and typed in my specialty, automatic stay violation, and at first it came up blank.  I changed it around some and it did find a number of sources, but the time it took to load pages, OMG.

It might grow on me I guess, but I do not like the dark intro screen (it looks more like Google's evil twin); I do not like the logo. I do not like the layout; it certainly did not list my blog or any post within the first 6 pages I looked at and I am the most prolific writing on the subject online in the country; and in the end it did not seem to this simpleton that it offered anything more than my favorite brand - Google.

Cuil is a name that is suppose to come from the Irish background of one of its founders.  That is good enough, but then why all of the black, gray and blue.  Hell, throw up some green, or a shamrock or two.

Maybe they should have named it "Cruil" and in cruel.  But, then, again, what do I know.

After getting inquiries about Cuil, Google asserted on its blog Friday that it regularly scans through 1 trillion unique Web links. But Google said it doesn't index them all because they either point to similar content or would diminish the quality of its search results in some other way. The posting didn't quantify the size of Google's index.

By the way, I could not find where Cruil had a blog to announce anything.  I have looked at the launching of a lot of products and services of late and they all seem to start off with a blog.  Not here.  Not that I could find.

Look, I understand the argument that the site just launched and it will add things like blogs searches, blog readers and the like.  But for some things, this is almost like going to a new hamburger joint on the opening day only to have them tell you that they will be adding hamburger patties later after they get more established.

A search index's scope is important because information, pictures and content can't be found unless they're stored in a database. But Cuil believes it will outshine Google in several other ways, including its method for identifying and displaying pertinent results.

Rather than trying to mimic Google's method of ranking the quantity and quality of links to Web sites, Patterson says Cuil's technology drills into the actual content of a page. And Cuil's results will be presented in a more magazine-like format instead of just a vertical stack of Web links. Cuil's results are displayed with more photos spread horizontally across the page and include sidebars that can be clicked on to learn more about topics related to the original search request.

The problem with the magazine like approach is that I want to scan quickly through results.  I do not want to read a magazine.  Google makes the actual task I am looking for easier and, hence, more enjoyable.

Cuil is also hoping to attract traffic by promising not to retain information about its users' search histories or surfing patterns.  This is something that Google does, much to the consternation of privacy watchdogs, and in this Cuil might be onto something.

Cuil is just the latest in a long line of Google challengers, including  startups like Teoma (whose technology became the backbone of Ask.com), Vivisimo, Snap, Mahalo and, most recently, Powerset, which was acquired by Microsoft.

Each of these startups has a much better design or interface than does the Darth Vader quality of the Cuil site.

Even after investing hundreds of millions of dollars on search, both Microsoft and Yahoo Inc. have been losing ground to Google. Through May, Google held a 62 percent share of the U.S. search market followed by Yahoo at 21 percent and Microsoft at 8.5 percent, according to comScore Inc.

Google has become so synonymous with Internet search that it may no longer matter how good Cuil or any other challenger is, said Gartner Inc. analyst Allen Weiner.  "Search has become as much about branding as anything else," Weiner said. "I doubt (Cuil) will be keeping anyone at Google awake at night."

Google welcomed Cuil to the fray with its usual mantra about its rivals. "Having great competitors is a huge benefit to us and everyone in the search space," Watson said. "It makes us all work harder, and at the end of the day our users benefit from that."