WEBVTT - What happened to Cuil? 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:02.880 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:09.000 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With 0:00:09.080 --> 0:00:17.959 tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello, everyone, 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:20.439 Welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Poulette and 0:00:20.480 --> 0:00:23.200 I'm an editor at how stuff works dot Com. Sitting 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:25.639 across from me, as he always does, is senior writer 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:29.720 Jonathan Strickland, the Pink Lady's pledge to act cool, to 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:33.360 look cool, and to be cool till death to us 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:39.000 part think pink. Really, I expected that you were going 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:43.560 to go with a completely different musical. Hey, you gave 0:00:43.560 --> 0:00:47.760 it away. Yeah, like that's a shock. Well it's it's 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:50.639 because it had the word cool in it and we're 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:54.560 gonna be talking about cool. I guess then West Side 0:00:54.560 --> 0:00:56.480 Story would have been too easy. Yeah, that would have 0:00:56.520 --> 0:01:00.560 been totally different cool. Yes, anyway, we are speaking of 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:05.120 cool today, but we're talking about c U I L. Cool. Yes, 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:08.880 the late but not quite lamented search engine. But I 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:11.920 think it was mostly lamented while it was still around. Yeah, 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:15.039 sadly it was. If you're not familiar with cool, it's 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:18.360 it didn't live very long. Um. Google just celebrated its 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:21.360 tenth anniversary. Not too long ago. But Cool was only 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:25.720 around for two just over just over two years. Yeah, 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:28.560 but it was supposed to be, like many have been described, 0:01:28.680 --> 0:01:34.760 a Google killer, and unfortunately for them especially, it it wasn't. Yeah, 0:01:34.800 --> 0:01:38.240 it's it's an interesting story, and we only have a 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:40.800 few details about that story. A lot of it ends 0:01:40.880 --> 0:01:43.720 up still being behind closed doors. People weren't really you know, 0:01:44.319 --> 0:01:48.160 eager to talk about failures so much, I mean, understandably so. 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:54.480 But the concept behind Cool was actually fairly sound. You know. 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:56.840 It was a it was a really interesting take on 0:01:57.080 --> 0:02:01.840 the search engine model, right, and and to really get 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:04.200 an idea of why this was at all a big 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:06.720 deal And you may think, well, it can't be a 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:09.240 big deal. I haven't heard about Cool for years. Um, 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:11.240 the big deal was that when it was when it 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:14.600 launched back in July of two thousand eight. Yes, the 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:17.400 big news behind it was that it was being headed 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:21.840 by a former Google employee. Yes, there are actually many 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:25.839 people who were involved with Google who moved on to Cool, right, Yeah, 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:30.280 there were. There were three co founders, and two of 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:33.800 the co founders formerly worked with Google. There was Anna 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:37.960 Patterson and she was someone who worked on the Terra 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:43.200 Google indexing technology. Yes, And there was Russell Power who 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:46.720 was part of Google's search indexing team, and he was 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:48.560 another one of the co founders. And then the third 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:52.160 co founder was Tom Costello, who was Anna Patterson's husband, 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:55.680 um who's a Stanford employee who who studied and worked 0:02:55.760 --> 0:02:59.640 on web search technologies. Though he was not not a 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:02.919 Google play I do believe he was also involved with 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:06.800 IBMS web Fountain yes project, at least according to Danny 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:10.040 Sullivan of Search engine Land YEP and the other the 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:13.359 other members of the team when it launched, and again 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:17.520 this was back in July of two eight. We're Louis Monnier, 0:03:17.960 --> 0:03:22.280 who was the founder of Alta Vista, Yes, which if 0:03:22.600 --> 0:03:24.400 in case you guys aren't aware, I mean we have 0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:29.520 some young listeners, right. Alta Vista was an enormous search 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:33.839 engine pre Google. Yeah, there were a number of of 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:37.880 I guess giants you could say. Right now, Google is 0:03:37.920 --> 0:03:42.480 such a big force in search engine world that it's 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:44.560 kind of hard to think of it being different. But 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:49.240 we had Alta Vista and lycos Um of course for 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:54.119 a while. Um Hot bought web Crawler web crawler Yahoo 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:57.440 of course, which was all done by hand at one point. Yeah, 0:03:57.440 --> 0:04:00.560 it was all It was all edited by people. It 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:03.400 was not automated, and that at that actually sort of 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:06.680 plays into cools h realm in a minute. But yeah, 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:08.160 I mean it was it was a lot different before 0:04:08.320 --> 0:04:14.280 Google came around with the its innovative technology based solution. Right. Yeah, 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:18.080 Alta Vista was the dominant search engine among all the 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:20.880 others we just listed before Google came around, and did 0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:25.040 not take Google too long to take that mental away 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:27.720 from Alta Vista. So you might say that many had 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:31.239 a an ax to grind Um. Actually he didn't stay 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:34.479 with the company for very long though, because remember in July, 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:37.719 at launched. Now, granted there had been work on cool 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:41.760 for for a couple of years before it launched. It's 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:43.880 just that no one had really heard about it outside 0:04:43.920 --> 0:04:48.159 of the immediate team of developers until it went public. 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:51.640 But the by went public, I mean the website launched, 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:54.640 it was not it was not a public company, right, 0:04:55.040 --> 0:05:00.120 so it's a private company. Um. Well, Monier he he 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:03.120 left the company in September of two thousand eight, so 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:06.080 it'd only been live for a couple of months. And uh. 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:11.240 The crunch Base reported that the reason for leaving was 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:17.200 due to differences air Quotes with the CEO UH. Then 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:20.240 the other members, the other executive members of Cool included 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:24.560 Vince Slido, who was originally the VP of corporate Communications 0:05:24.600 --> 0:05:27.800 with Cool. He left actually in August of two thousand eight, 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:31.800 so the month after it went live he left. He 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:34.480 left to join PayPal. Then later on he left PayPal 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:39.960 to join Yelp. Then you had UH, Peter Szmanski who 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:42.760 was a former attorney he actually joined as the VP 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:46.039 of Corporate Development and general counsel. And Bruce baum Guard 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:50.360 who was formerly of the Internet Archive IBM and soft Ticks. 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:53.000 He was the CEO of that for a while. Um 0:05:53.040 --> 0:05:56.719 he became the head of operations. So all these guys 0:05:56.760 --> 0:06:01.320 had a history in tech companies to extent before joining 0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:05.720 with Cool. And it was really a big risk in 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:08.000 a way, but was also just made a lot of 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:11.680 news because suddenly you had these former Google employees and 0:06:11.720 --> 0:06:15.559 Google competitors all joining forces to create a search engine 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:19.280 that they claimed, out of the gate was superior to Google. 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:22.720 And UH, this got a lot of attention, I mean 0:06:22.720 --> 0:06:25.800 clearly in the tech industry and journalism. All the journalists 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:28.320 immediately went to cool dot com to check it out 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:32.039 and find out what what was the big deal? You know, 0:06:32.240 --> 0:06:34.840 wasn't really better than Google? And they found out on 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:39.479 that first day that it had crashed, yes, multiple times. 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:44.680 Well it it in defense of Cool in this particular instance. Uh, 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:48.719 there had been enough hype generated during its pre launch 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:51.600 phase that apparently it attracted quite a bit of traffic 0:06:52.200 --> 0:06:53.599 um and that could be that could be hard for 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:56.480 a new company when it first goes live with something 0:06:56.520 --> 0:06:59.400 like that, simply because that there, you know, they may 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:01.599 not be prepared to handle that kind of traffic. But 0:07:01.640 --> 0:07:03.800 as it turns out, that was sort of an ill 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:07.719 omen Yeah, actually that was here's the thing, Okay, that 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:10.239 here's how I see it. All right, So the launch 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:15.440 date was July. By July twenty nine, there were already 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:20.480 tons of reviews about Cool. But but but the reason 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:24.080 why I bring up the crash is because you have 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:26.720 a legitimate point, I mean a very legitimate point in 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:32.080 that new companies often cannot handle a mass of traffic 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:34.240 all at once. They may have been able to que 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:38.120 a with a fraction of that number, but it's hard 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:41.480 to que a big rushes in traffic because you have 0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:43.320 to you know, create all this, You have to create 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:45.880 the traffic to test it, right, So you really don't 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:47.920 know how your system is gonna hold up until it's 0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:53.320 hit by that demand. However, one of the claims they 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:58.120 that the founders made was that Cool indexed three times 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:01.520 as many web pages as Google. Goal right, The claim 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:06.040 was that Google had indexed around forty billion, that's billion 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:11.000 with a B web pages, and that Cool had indexed 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:16.080 one twenty billion. Now, Google later on came out and said, hey, guys, 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:20.400 come on, we've scanned over two trillion pages. We just 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:23.320 index the ones that are important, that are that actually 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:25.880 have something of value on them. So, yeah, you can 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:28.840 go ahead and say you've indexed a hundred billion, but 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:32.560 we've indexed the forty billion pages that actually have stuff 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:34.680 on them worth seeing. You've got a lot of garbage 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:37.600 in there. That was essentially the message kind of I 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:42.640 delivered in a much more overt way than Google did. 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:45.959 That was that was me being snarky. But yeah, I 0:08:46.320 --> 0:08:50.840 had read reviews that suggested that that some of the 0:08:50.840 --> 0:08:55.200 others had had posed the question according to whom I'm 0:08:55.240 --> 0:08:58.560 paraphrasing here, you know, how do you know how many 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:03.160 pages the competition is indexed? Um, and you know it's 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:05.240 hard to say. I mean even even cool hedged its 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:07.720 own and said it had run across a hundred and 0:09:07.720 --> 0:09:11.840 eighty six billion pages. But you know, due to spam 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:15.120 and duplicate content, some of those have been excluded from 0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:18.160 those that was actually carrying UM that was that was 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:21.079 one of the things that was a differentiating factor. At 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:22.840 least one of the things that Cool was using as 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:25.760 a differentiating factor was the number of pages index. Another 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:28.800 is the way it was was ranking content. And we've 0:09:28.840 --> 0:09:31.800 talked several times about it, and Jonathan's written an excellent 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:35.079 article about the Google algorithm on the website, which I 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:37.480 would encourage you to go look at because it's really 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:41.160 really awesome. It's called why is the Google Algorithm So Important? 0:09:42.000 --> 0:09:44.240 And before we talk about how Cool does it, it 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:47.280 probably would behoove us to say, talk a little bit 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:51.480 about what Google does to to rank web search results. 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:54.440 I agree, I feel like it's um you can't really 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:59.200 compare one service to the leader saying it's a Google 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:01.679 killer with out knowing how Google is doing that. So 0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:08.960 Google judges relevance on search results based upon how popular 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:13.760 a particular web page is. So the more popular web pages, 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:18.559 the more relevant Google assumes that search result is to 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:22.240 whatever query you use. So let's let's take an example. 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:27.320 Let's say that there's let's let's pick um dungeons and dragons. Okay, 0:10:27.720 --> 0:10:32.000 so you've done a web search on dungeons and dragons. 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:34.280 And what Google will do is it will look at 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:37.080 its index of websites and look for the pages that 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:39.920 have that are the most popular. And the way Google 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:45.240 measures popularity is by chiefly the number of links other 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:49.280 pages have to that web page, right, And in addition 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:52.840 to that, it looks at the quality of the content 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:56.199 whether these the pages linking to it are considered reputable 0:10:56.200 --> 0:10:58.920 sources as well. Right. So if if you have a 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:02.800 lot of high ranking pages linking to you, you in 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:06.319 turn will be very high ranking. Now that's one of 0:11:06.360 --> 0:11:08.719 the interesting things about Google is that the algorithm takes 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:11.240 a lot of different things into account. It takes the 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:13.840 quality of the pages that are linking to you into account. 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:16.719 So let's say that you write a blog post and 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:20.079 CNN links to your blog post. That's gonna boost your 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:23.120 popularity quite a bit. And or but let's say you've 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:26.920 written another blog post and a hundred smaller blogs have 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:29.760 linked to you. That might not boost you as much 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:32.720 as that one CNN linked did for the other blog post. 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:35.920 So yeah, there's a lot of different fiddling around with 0:11:35.960 --> 0:11:38.880 the algorithm, and no one has it besides Google. That is, 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:41.320 no one has it perfectly figured out, mostly because Google 0:11:41.440 --> 0:11:43.720 changes it up pretty frequently to make sure that you 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:48.040 get at what they considered the most relevant results to 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:50.839 your query. Now, Cool did it a totally different way. 0:11:50.880 --> 0:11:52.640 They said that this is the wrong way. You're basing 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:56.439 it on popularity. Popularity and UH and being correct are 0:11:56.520 --> 0:12:00.000 two different things. Yes, that just because something is popped 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:02.920 uler doesn't mean it's right. I think there was The 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:05.320 example I read was something along the lines of and 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:08.120 this was a journalist who was writing this who said, well, 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:10.679 I mean it is true that the most popular restaurants 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:15.240 are not necessarily the best restaurants. So in that sense, 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:18.800 you don't want necessarily what's popular, you want what's most relevant. 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:22.320 So cool The claim was that cool search engine results 0:12:22.800 --> 0:12:27.440 were contextually based. They could they were looking for relevance 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:29.920 based on context. So you would put in your Dungeons 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:32.559 and Dragons query. It wouldn't look for the pages that 0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:34.400 had the most links to them. It would look for 0:12:34.400 --> 0:12:37.199 the pages that seemed to be about dungeons and dragons 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:42.080 the most like that was the primary, uh focus of 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:44.720 that web page and those that's how it would deliver 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:48.480 your results. Yeah. I believe the article you mentioned with 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:53.480 the restaurant was Anita Hamilton's review in Time magazine. Yes, 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:56.480 in July two thou I ran across that as well. 0:12:56.640 --> 0:12:59.040 That's a good, good review. Yeah it starts off with 0:12:59.200 --> 0:13:03.520 rest easy goog goal. Yeah, that pretty much. But I'll 0:13:03.520 --> 0:13:07.840 go ahead and say this too, because um, really Cool 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:13.959 got lambasted by by journalists, I mean even journalists who 0:13:13.960 --> 0:13:22.480 are not typically critics. I feel a sense of sympathy 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:26.439 towards the executives at Cool because I felt like they 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:30.120 really got judged harshly right out of the gate, and 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:34.640 then they had no chance to recover. Um. And part 0:13:34.640 --> 0:13:37.480 of that might be releasing a little too early, releasing 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:40.280 something that is, you know, one way or another half baked. 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:43.640 But in some cases I really felt like it almost 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:47.079 became a one upsmanship game among journalists to see who 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:52.400 could write the most snarky critical account of Cool and 0:13:52.480 --> 0:13:55.040 what it could do. A lot of that also comes 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:56.920 from the fact that you know, there was a lot 0:13:56.960 --> 0:13:59.720 of boasting on Cool's part, So in a way, it 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:01.320 was kind of a come up and thing. You know, 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:04.720 they claim all these things, but this is what the 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:09.240 actual results are, as both parties are to blame. But 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:11.120 I just wanted to puint that I think I even 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:13.120 wrote a blog post. I didn't even look this up, 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:14.680 but I'm pretty sure I wrote a blog post on 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:17.520 Cool when it came out. And I don't remember if 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:20.120 I was snarky or not knowing me probably a little, 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:23.800 but I don't think it was quite as as harsh 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:26.720 as some of the journalists were. Yeah, one of the 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:30.800 things that they also got hammered on was the fact 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:34.120 that they had the Cool executives had said, well, you know, 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:38.880 we're ranking things differently than Google does. We're not necessarily 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:43.000 using popularity as one of our criteria. But as Danny 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:46.840 Danny Sullivan said, well, it's not all about the content there. 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:51.280 They are factoring in popularity. Um. He actually, in his article, 0:14:51.560 --> 0:14:55.360 which is quite lengthy and in depth, Um went into 0:14:56.440 --> 0:14:58.720 how he'd be put in a search for Harry Potter 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:03.680 and and uh used the name of his house. If 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:06.840 you're not familiar with Harry Potter, it's a UM it's said, 0:15:06.880 --> 0:15:09.800 in a school in which there are four different houses 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:13.080 and the Potter yes, I know, well, there are some 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:16.120 people who haven't read it the movies or seen the movies. 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:18.120 And he put in the name of Harry Potter in 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:19.520 the house he was in in his school, and it 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:22.600 brought up the name of the most recent movie. That house, 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:26.560 by the way, was Griffin Door. Yes, and so he said, uh, 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:28.720 you know, the first thing that came up on Cool 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:32.160 was the latest movie. And he said, this shows that 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:35.880 they are using that popularity is factoring into the Cool 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:39.240 search algorithm, despite the fact that they have claimed that 0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:43.080 it doesn't. They also said that Cool was faster, although 0:15:43.160 --> 0:15:46.080 whether they meant that Cool was faster at indexing new 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:49.680 pages than Google was, or that Cool was actually faster 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:53.000 at generating search engine results after a query that kind 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:55.600 of that was one of those things that was always confusing. 0:15:56.040 --> 0:15:59.560 Um I would imagine they meant indexing, because really, at 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:03.120 this point, the weight that you you have to see 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:07.400 search engine results is minuscule. It's you know, you can 0:16:07.480 --> 0:16:10.840 usually you can't even count to one, much less two 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:14.120 before you get them unless you've got a really slow connection. 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:17.400 Um So I would imagine they meant that they were 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:20.000 faster at indexing new pages. Now, of course, Google has 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:26.480 really ramped up on that itself recently. Uh yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:32.080 Google's Google has entire departments developed just to increase the 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:35.440 speed of indexing new content so that it shows up 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:39.880 in Google search results. The cool thing I thought. The 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:43.640 interesting thing I thought about Cool's results pages were that 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:49.960 they it would divide up your search into categories. You 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:52.480 had tabs across the top of your search results, so 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:56.960 of course you had three columns of results to start with. 0:16:57.080 --> 0:17:01.240 And that's sort of confused some people because they were sorry, 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:06.960 um no, because people were expecting traditional search results pages, 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:10.280 which are still pretty much the same. You have, you know, 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:12.000 the top results at the top of the page, and 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:14.040 you scroll down and there are other things there maybe, 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:17.040 um you know, Google and Being and a lot of 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:21.080 the others have incorporated news and blogs and things like that, 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:24.720 but they're usually grouped somewhere in the middle. Um. But 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:29.399 but cool search engine results pages or serups um would 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:32.919 bring up three columns information and if you are in 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:36.720 a hurry and looking for the number one link, you're going, okay, 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:39.399 so I guess it's the top left. Is that the 0:17:39.400 --> 0:17:41.159 one in the middle you know which one is it, 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:43.880 which is the top one? And you couldn't break out 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:46.680 search results by things like news and blogs and stuff 0:17:46.680 --> 0:17:49.160 on Cool. But what you could do is it would 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:52.160 have tabs at the top of your page that would 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:55.760 have categories that your search query would fall into. Let's 0:17:55.760 --> 0:17:58.600 say again, let's say you did dudgeons and dragons. Your 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:01.720 your categories might be something like dungeons and dragons, game, 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:05.160 dungeons and dragons, movie, dungeons and dragons, gear, that kind 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:07.200 of stuff. And then by clicking on a tab, you 0:18:07.200 --> 0:18:10.560 would bring up a new set of search results that 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:14.359 are specifically towards that category, and you would get new 0:18:14.400 --> 0:18:17.880 tabs that would go into subcategories, so you can start 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:20.439 digging deeper and deeper into your subject, getting more and 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:23.359 more precise. But it meant that you had to click 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:27.720 to get to those deeper, more precise results. I think 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:31.320 that may, over everything else, may have been Cool's downfall 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:34.680 because it required the user to put in more effort 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:39.720 to find specific results pertaining to his or her query. 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:42.000 And I can tell you from the user experienced perspective, 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:45.440 that is a killer. Yeah. Now with Google, the same 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:48.520 thing sort of holds true. You may not see what 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:50.200 you were looking for when you put in your first 0:18:50.200 --> 0:18:52.280 search result, and then you go back in and you're like, well, 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:54.560 maybe I'll add in another term to kind of narrow 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:56.960 it down a little more. So you're essentially doing the 0:18:57.000 --> 0:18:58.760 same thing with Google. It's just doing it in a 0:18:58.800 --> 0:19:01.080 different way. You don't have to navigate through tabs and 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:03.800 click through. You're actually having to type a new thing. 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:06.240 You could even argue that it's actually more work intensive 0:19:06.320 --> 0:19:08.480 to do it the way Google does, But I think 0:19:08.680 --> 0:19:13.200 it's more natural to the average user than navigating through 0:19:13.240 --> 0:19:16.800 tabs and trying to to narrow your search down that way. 0:19:17.119 --> 0:19:20.200 And and part of the problem is that people didn't 0:19:20.200 --> 0:19:26.119 take the time to learn Cool's method of organizing information 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:29.680 to really use it to its its most, to its 0:19:29.720 --> 0:19:33.359 full potential. Another part of that problem is that for 0:19:33.480 --> 0:19:37.639 several really well known terms, Cool just didn't seem to 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:41.280 bring back good results period. Now, maybe if you had 0:19:41.320 --> 0:19:43.439 dug down you would start to find them, but on 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:47.000 that first initial page of results, where you don't expect 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:48.840 to have to dig any further, you should be able 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:51.439 to see it right there. People were reporting that they 0:19:51.440 --> 0:19:55.480 were searching for terms often names, but not always just names, 0:19:56.000 --> 0:20:00.920 and not getting relevant search results at all. I've heard 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:04.240 the same complaint levied against Wolf from Alpha because people 0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:06.959 think it's a search engine when it's really not designed 0:20:07.000 --> 0:20:09.480 to do that. But it bears such a resemblance to 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:11.760 a search engine that people plug in search terms and 0:20:11.800 --> 0:20:14.120 expect to get results. They don't get it. Clearly they 0:20:14.119 --> 0:20:17.040 didn't listen to our podcast episode Wolf from Alpha. Alpha 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:19.720 is not a search engine, yes, um, and I still 0:20:19.800 --> 0:20:22.399 highly recommend that that site, but it's not something that 0:20:22.440 --> 0:20:25.800 you plug Harry Potter in and get results. Um well, 0:20:25.840 --> 0:20:27.639 I think there probably is some kind of result, but 0:20:27.680 --> 0:20:30.480 you're not. It's more of a scientific site. I won't 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:33.439 be satisfied until Wolf from Alpha can write a new 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:36.840 Harry Potter novel just by typing in Wolf. You type 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:39.440 in Harry Potter eight and it generates a novel for you. 0:20:40.000 --> 0:20:42.840 Um well, as it turns out, h J k Rolling 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:46.560 maybe doing that on her own. However, Cool was supposed 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:49.840 to be a search engine and it you know, there's 0:20:49.880 --> 0:20:55.119 really there really was no good answer from Cool uh 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:58.000 for them to say, well, we can't explain why this 0:20:58.080 --> 0:21:02.240 isn't in there. Um, But there was one area at 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:05.720 which Cool really excelled, and everybody seems to agree that 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:11.760 it was a really positive step. I'm assuming it's privacy, Yes, privacy. 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:15.280 They they they were very good about not logging um, 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:19.400 identifiable information about about the people who use the site. 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:24.080 No I P information that's Internet protocol um, no cookies, 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:27.400 those kinds of things were not uh, we're not part 0:21:27.480 --> 0:21:31.199 of it. And and that was one area that just 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:34.520 about everybody who reviewed it, all the research I did, 0:21:34.640 --> 0:21:37.760 everybody spoke at least a little bit about the privacy 0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:39.679 issue and how they felt the Cool was doing that 0:21:39.760 --> 0:21:43.000 part of it absolutely right. It almost became a backhanded thing, though, 0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:47.040 would be like, you know, I don't get any decent 0:21:47.080 --> 0:21:50.600 search results, but at least they're not tracking me. Yeah. Um, 0:21:50.640 --> 0:21:52.800 in a way, I think that may have actually hurt 0:21:52.840 --> 0:21:55.280 cool as well. And the reason why I say that 0:21:55.480 --> 0:21:58.840 is Google's not tracking you in order to violate your privacy. 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:06.000 Google's not really Google really. Google has no specific interest 0:22:06.200 --> 0:22:09.440 in you or what you do, apart from the fact 0:22:09.440 --> 0:22:17.400 that you are potentially going to be valuable to some advertiser, Right, Google, 0:22:17.480 --> 0:22:19.920 Google will, I don't know what they're thinking. I'm thinking, 0:22:20.280 --> 0:22:22.600 all right, this is this is sell me to use 0:22:22.640 --> 0:22:25.280 critical thinking, Johnathan, this is my arm chair. This is 0:22:25.320 --> 0:22:29.720 my armchair analytical mode here. So Google tracks information in 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:34.400 parts so that it can sell advertising space to advertisers. 0:22:34.440 --> 0:22:36.760 That is true. That that much I agree with. So 0:22:37.880 --> 0:22:41.080 that means that that information has an actual value. And 0:22:41.200 --> 0:22:43.680 you've heard us talk about this about Facebook and other 0:22:44.080 --> 0:22:47.960 companies as well. So Google wants to have this information 0:22:48.040 --> 0:22:51.520 and again not necessarily tying it specifically to you, but 0:22:51.760 --> 0:22:55.399 to a user that you happen to be. Sounds kind 0:22:55.400 --> 0:22:57.200 of weird, but in a way they're they're not. They're 0:22:57.240 --> 0:22:59.399 not concerned about the individual. They're just they know that 0:22:59.560 --> 0:23:02.400 someone is interested in blah blah blah. So they can 0:23:02.480 --> 0:23:06.920 sell that information to an advertiser. Uh, that blah blah 0:23:06.960 --> 0:23:10.400 blah happens to be your interest neither here nor there. 0:23:10.960 --> 0:23:13.080 You know it's interested in blah blah blah. It's written 0:23:13.119 --> 0:23:16.840 all over your face. So anyway, the idea here is 0:23:16.880 --> 0:23:19.960 that Google could sell this information advertisers. Well, Cool did 0:23:20.000 --> 0:23:23.119