Earlier this week you may have heard the “buzz” regarding the launch of the new search engine “Cuil“. The components of the launch all seemed to be “storybook” — the company was positioned as direct competition to Google (in theory), heavily invested, created by Ex-Google workers, claims that the search technology had a farther and more effective …all of the components seemed to add up to one all-to-good-to-be-true story. Could there really be competition brewing to “the great Oz” aka Google?

Fail.

I happened to catch the Twitters while walking the streets of New York about the launch — so I opened up my mobile browser and searched for my full name on www.cuil.com, only to be disappointed that the servers were too slammed for the site to even work.

Being a web consultant myself at Digital Evolution Group — launching a website is hard. It’s never an easy task. With its Ex-Google employee history and $33 million dollars in funding, you would think it would have taken more calculated steps, especially for a site launch that garnered so much press. This of course, is all much easier said than done.

Regardless, the lesson learned is potentially a fatal one for Cuil as a company — “details matter”. Cuil knew it was going to be hit hard but failed to consider all the angles. They knew they were going to get lots of traffic that could potentially bring the site down, why not endorse a “beta” logo or disclose any type of “pre-launch” or “in testing” disclaimer. Why not also place this same type of verbiage within its error messages? Why not provide transparency to the lack of testing done prior to launch on the site?

It’s failure to do so instantly has tarnished it’s credibility. End-users had the expectation the site was complete and ready for use.  Now, it could be argued that the majority of people who had a “bad first-time experience” will ever consider using it again. Just a little attention to detail, with a minimal amount of development effort would have possibly placed them in a much better light across the blogger community, but more importantly with the general public.  Now, when I ask my friends about their thoughts on the Cuil it’s unanimous — “what a complete failed attempt to beat Google”.
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