Monday July 28 saw the release of Cuil (pronounced “cool”), a new search engine launched by a group of ex-Google employees including Anna Patterson and her husband Tim Costello.

According to Cuil’s founders, Cuil is more comprehensive - with an index of 120 billion web pages, more than any other search engine - and delivers more relevant search results than Google’s search engine.

Despite the pedigree of Cuil’s founders and team, many commentators - myself included - were rather unimpressed when giving Cuil a spin. I found it slow, the layout confusing (no clear order and a strange use of images alongside unrelated webpages) and the results to be less relevant than those generated by Google.

It also lacks any kind of unique selling point. As an up and coming search engine it has nothing like the “wow” factor of, say, SearchMe and isn’t based on any markedly different technology as is Powerset (which uses semantic or “natural language” technology).

Rather it’s main selling proposition seems to hinge on being better than Google i.e “we’re bigger and more relevant, therefore we’re better”. Yet, as Google has indicated, bigger is not necessarily better (given all the crap on the Internet!) and Cuil has a way to go before it delivers more relevant search results.

Of course, it’s early days and Cuil may still become cool. Who knows, Microsoft might buy it.

Sources: Miguel Helft, “Former Employees of Google Prepare Rival Search Engine”, The New York Times, July 28, 2008, Frederic Lardinois, “Cuil: Good, But Not Great”, Read Write Web, July 28, 2008, Michael Arrington, “Google Beats Cuil Hands Down In Size And Relevance, But That Isn’t The Whole Story”, July 27, 2008

Microsoft plans to spend just over $100 million to acquire semantic search engine company Powerset.

Powerset’s semantic or “natural language” technology aims to deliver search results based on what search engine users are really looking for, due to making meaningful connections between the words typed in by such users.

While Google is said to be using semantic technology to a limited degree, it has generally dismissed Powerset’s approach. Consequently, Google’s search results are still mainly based on the individual words typed in by its search engine users.

With the popularity of Microsoft Live lagging significantly behind Google and Yahoo, Microsoft’s purchase of Powerset is undoubtedly a bid to increase its share of search, based on delivering better quality search results. However, many believe that while theoretically appealing, semantic search is practically impossible to implement in reality.

Source: Matt Marshall, “Microsoft to buy semantic search engine Powerset for $100M plus”, VentureBeat, June 26, 2008