Jul 28, 2008
All the tech blogs are aflame with news of Cuil’s launch (pronounced cool), so I thought I would give the new search engine a try. Cuil’s brick wall immediately becomes apparent before I ever even hit the site. Instinctively, I tabbed over to my google search bar embedded in FireFox and typed in ‘cuil.’
That’s right - I’m a url searcher (someone who knows the url for a given site but still types it into a google search bar), and by all accounts I’m not alone. So, I’m an engaged user actively looking to try out a new search engine and I am typing that search engine’s name into google? I don’t envy the position Cuil is in.
On a more optimistic note, I really like Cuil’s interface. It’s refreshing and new, which seems to stimulate the brain, and their categorization of searches really helps. I’ll definitely use it more if I think about it, but again I search instinctively and right now that means I use the google search box in firefox.
Jul 1, 2008
Adobe just dropped a bomb as far as I’m concerned. They’ve announced a collaboration between Google and Yahoo to bring fully searchable SWFs. Ted on Flex reveals the best part:
The cool part is that this also covers dynamic data loaded in from requests to a server, these are typically ignored in both AJAX and SWF applications.
This is going to open the door for a lot of the cool and useful things we’ve been wanting to do for clients at Figaro, but have had reservations about because of SEO implications, and I’m sure many RIA houses out there feel the same.
Combine this news with a tool like swfaddress to provide deep linking into your applications and BAM! you have a killer combo. Let’s just remember to keep our apps classy and tasteful, guys and gals. This news isn’t cause to go hog wild with flash like the late 90s, early 2000s restaurant site debacle.
May 21, 2008
The news was all abuzz today over the announcement of the Microsoft Windows Live Ultimate Vista Live Windows Search Cashback program (seriously, have you read about the branding problems at Microsoft?) and I honestly have to say I’m not surprised Microsoft is going in this direction. Most pundits have been deriding this idea, and I have to agree to with most if not all of what they are saying.
But there is one thing I vaguely remember reading back a few weeks ago. Microsoft blasted current search advertising relevance, saying that the system was incredibly inefficient. Ad buyers are paying for ad space by the CPM or click-through, but Microsoft’s stance is that advertisers should be paying by the conversion. I happen to agree with them with this (and so does Om Malik).
Eventually the online and search advertising industry is going to become more and more efficient, analytics will get better, and ad buyers will want quantitative results for the money they spend. The ultimate result is the conversion, not CPM or click-through.
So, with that frame of mind maybe Microsoft does have the right idea in giving their search users incentives to produce conversions through their search. But, in typical Microsoft fashion, Microsoft Whatever Cashback came off looking like a cheap “You’ve Been Pre-Approved For Cashback!!” credit card spam scheme rather than a prescient or game-changing step towards a more efficient online advertising industry.
