Cuil.com - A Botched Positioning Opportunity

Cuil.com is positioned as a competitor to Google search. That's the equivalent of standing in front of a speeding train and hoping you'll survive just because you're wearing a cool (cuil?) Superman outfit.

Don't get me wrong. These guys are obviously very smart engineers with experience in companies like Google. But the guy who thought up their positioning statement really needs a kick up his pants. As somebody who has seen the light (or rather, read the book - The Star Principle), I know that Cuil's positioning is most likely to fail. As search engine guru - Danny Sullivan says, "Anybody who thought [Cuil] was this Google killer can really see now that no, that's not going to happen today — and the likelihood is that's not going to happen a year from now."

And if you look at Cuil's "About Us" section, after saying that they're the world's biggest search engine, they go on to say, "Rather than rely on superficial popularity metrics, Cuil searches for and ranks pages based on their content and relevance." Umm, is'nt that what the search engines were doing before Google came along?

So the big lesson is ... saying that you're bigger than the competition doesn't mean anything if it is not useful to your end-users.

So how would I have positioned Cuil? Well, if you scroll down their "About Us" section, you'll see a small para that says, "so we don’t collect data about you and your habits, lest we are tempted to peek. With Cuil, your search history is always private." Wow! There's your positioning statement!

"With Cuil, you're search history is always private"

Google is now viewed as this evil big brother who monitors and keeps track of user activities. Capitalizing on this, Cuil should create FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) in the minds of consumers about Google. The market for search engines can then be split up into two parts - with one part being "private search" and the other being "tracked search." They can start calling themselves as the leaders in private search. And suddenly you've got a competitor for Google!

Hope one of the folks at Cuil reads this and pays some attention to their positioning.