Search for “Cuil” on Cuil… They Can’t Find Their Own Site!
Yes, it has been bad. It is possibly the greatest 1-day reversal of fortunes in the history of the Internet. Monday started off as a monumental day for Cuil with over 7.4 trillion articles and blog posts written about its launch. Before Monday ended, it was reviewed by another 471 billion blogs and given a fail rating by all but 11 or so.
If you haven’t heard about it, you didn’t turn on your computer Monday. Sadly, that would make you one of the lucky ones. If you haven’t tried it, it’s worth a shot just so you’ll know that we aren’t just picking on it. It’s that bad. NetworkWorld said it was cold. The New York Times pointed out various problems with Cuil, as did IT Pro, ZDNet, an eWeek.
WebProNews was a bit more blunt, saying that Cuil crashed and burned, while AlleyInsider said it was the “Worst. Launch. Ever.”
All of this is wonderfully scathing, but perhaps the truest testamony against the Google challenger-for-a-few-hours was picked up by Techcrunch. Erich Schonfield noted that a search for “Cuil” ON cuil did not list their own website on the first page of results. Read more
Revolt? Day 2, Another Fail Dominates Front Page
One of the first front page stories that stayed at the top of the Propeller “Most Popular Stories” was titled, “Propeller.com new layout Sucks!!!“. If you click on the link to it, you get this:
This article has been removed from our system for violating our Terms of Use.
Fair enough. It was inflammatory and while it may have been a sounding board for disgruntled users, it did not offer a lot of value to the site. Soon after, an article titled “Propeller. Fail.” was posted and has been the top story on the front page of the site for some time. Not a lot of value again other than as a eulogy for the original story that was removed, but still, the point was made. At the time of this article, it has 227 comments.
The question must now be asked: 2 days, several complaints, several poor reviews, and a disgruntled user-base that is expressing itself by keeping these stories at the top — what does Propeller do now?
Should they say “OOPS, nevermind!” and put the old version back up? Should they just weather the storm that always seems to come when something warm and familiar is changed? Should they defend their position that this new format is better?
or…
Should they re-market themselves, allowing those who don’t like the new version to leave while pushing for a newer brand of Propeller users?
I hope they do not select the last option. This is a site that I have enjoyed and defended over the last few months and I would hate to see all of that effort go to waste. Here is a screenshot of the current front page as well as a screenshot of last night’s front page.
Above is now. Below is last night’s.
There really isn’t anything else to say about it. The people have spoken loud and clear.
It really could just take some getting used to, but I already miss the old, clunky version.
Testing TweetSnap
Reviewing (well, testing) Tweetsnap.
This seems like a pretty interesting idea for bloggers who are embedded in their twitter but hate messing with the downtime issues. We’ll see how it plays out.
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