Through Being Cuil
Yesterday’s much-hyped launch of Cuil made me nostalgic for the glory days of the late 1990s. We didn’t need beta testers, in fact we didn’t even need a business plan. All our clients needed were breifings with the top tech and consumer publications and the subsequent fawning press on the Day Of Launch.
But as Erick Schonfeld points out in Tech Crunch, it turns out that all was not ready in Cuil-land.
The story quickly turned from Google-killer to Google’s lunch (make that an amuse bouche). The results Cuil returns aren’t particularly great, and sometimes completely off the mark. For instance, a search for “Cuil” doesn’t even bring up a link to itself on the first page of results.
It turns out that agile development begets better products after all. Releasing early and often, opening up the process to as many beta testers as you can, getting input and at the same time developing a community of users who will rise to your support should the subsequent media coverage turn south - is the way to go.
Let’s imagine the past two days had Cuil opened itself up to a public beta testing process in the lead-up to the launch. Not only would they have a stronger product, but they would have a vocal community of users willing to jump to their defense.
If you are working with a client in ’stealth’ mode - insist on looking under the hood and getting a test account before the product goes public. Don’t take your client’s word for it, make sure the darn thing works and works right.
I give a lot of credit to Cuil’s agency for getting them a great deal of coverage yesterday. And I don’t fault them for not asking enough questions - that isn’t the job of the PR agency. But it is in the interest of the agency to at least ask.
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