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Cuil Goes Down for Good

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Re: Cuil Goes Down for Good

#81

Post by gxti »

lepht wrote: post #69
acabal wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the same reason that Craigslist is still king despite its tragic UI. Solving the chicken-and-egg problems of a large, active community and brand-name recognition is orders of magnitude harder than just making a new auction website.

There's certain cases, Amazon is another example, where a user interface violates what traditionally is considered 'good' design and is enhanced because of it.

Craigslist is minimal but reasonably well-designed. Amazon on the other hand I would go so far as to call awful. The #1 thing I'm looking for when I open a product page is the details about the product and it's below the fold. But still, they know far more than me about what sells, so I bow to their judgment.

Re: Cuil Goes Down for Good

#84

Post by danohuiginn »

guelo wrote: post #21
savrajsingh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, people can, and should, take on Google. At the same time, I happened to be on eBay today and noticed that I've been an eBay member for just over 10 years. Why is it that we haven't found a better way to run auctions online? Most people still list and participate in online auctions almost exactly the same way they did 10 years ago. I do agree that the pace of innovation is increasing, so maybe 10 years starting f…

I think an auction's network effect is harder to beat. Search doesn't have the network effect so Google was able to win just by being the best, to beat google at search now you're going to have to be an order of magnitude "better" and have non copyable tech. Facebook was able to beat Myspace even though they had the network because for personal identity the tone and "coolness" is very important. But for an auction it…

to beat ebay you'd start by establishing a base in one market (either one geographical region, or one type of product), and then expand from there. And even if you don't manage to beat ebay, you'd have a decent chance of establishing a moderately-sized business along the way.

Re: Cuil Goes Down for Good

#85

Post by johnglasgow »

User acquisition strategy is as important for a search engine as it is for any other consumer web company. Many that read HN are ahead of the curve when it comes to new technologies such as DDG. 99% of America just uses what they have until it breaks. So Cuil's lack of high quality results may not have been their only reason leading to their demise, but with 33m in funding I hope a solid chunk was devoted to acquiring main street America. Yes, Google initially won by having higher quality results, but any new player with higher quality results will only be marginally better than Google.

Re: Cuil Goes Down for Good

#86

Post by tzury »

jbm wrote: post #72
btilly wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK, investors are normally willing to invest one hundred now and get one thousand several years later. Not quite. VC plans on 9 out of 10 deals not working out. So that remaining 1 in 10 has to make enough to pay for the rest. That means that a 10-fold return just breaks even. But it gets worse. For an investment with a 10 year horizon they need to beat alternate investments. If you peg those at 10%/year (compound…

... Why was this modded down? Is the reasoning wrong, or is there some troll going on that I don't know about? It seems quite realistic to me.

I wonder the same, perhaps, this is the new HN.

Re: Cuil Goes Down for Good

#87

Post by tzury »

vladd wrote: post #56
tzury wrote: post #36

I am certainly sure that If I was given 10% of cuil 33M I would have end up with something 10 times more useful and profitable

You're just seeing the actual outcome. The investors paid for the full probabilistic model, where in 10% of the cases Cuil would have succeeded in beating Google and would have made tens of billions of dollars. That alone is worth 10% * tens of billions = billions. 33M for that doesn't seem much in that perspective. Your statement about "I am certainly sure" and "10 times more" ignores the probability distribution of…

As my accountant likes to repeat that cliché over and over, "Even-though figures do not lie, lairs can figure" - All I was saying is dead simple, and this is actually the values I was raised by, one should treat some one else's money 70 times more carefully then one's own.

I am sure not everyone would agree to subscribe to this rule, but I do.

By all means it should not take you $33M to recognize that you are in the wrong direction, the first 2-3 should do the job, unless you choose not to see what is happening in front of your eyes.

This is to be said to the founders and investors altogether.

Cuil was a joke, an expensive joke, period.

Re: Cuil Goes Down for Good

#90

Post by nigelsampson »

julianz wrote: post #58
savrajsingh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, people can, and should, take on Google. At the same time, I happened to be on eBay today and noticed that I've been an eBay member for just over 10 years. Why is it that we haven't found a better way to run auctions online? Most people still list and participate in online auctions almost exactly the same way they did 10 years ago. I do agree that the pace of innovation is increasing, so maybe 10 years starting f…

eBay's not the winner everywhere. Here in New Zealand they got comprehensively beaten by Trademe, so nobody here uses eBay at all. Now who's going to make the Trademe killer!

I think a lot of that was helped by the shipping cost from anywhere to New Zealand.

All things aside Trade Me has been a great web success story for the local industry.

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