Textual Pornography

This isn’t going to be about how Cuil is fantastic or terrible or anything.

At least directly.

Actually it’s about their most fantastic feature, the image association with search results. From the FAQ:

We know from our research that people can make better and quicker decisions about relevance and quality when they can see an image from the website. We do our best to take images from Web pages that accurately reflect the content of the website. Many websites are full of images, so we use advanced algorithms to determine the best image to show the user.

Let’s look at some results. The images can change based on the search term, so I’ve included those as well.

site: adiumx.com, the home of a Mac-only IM client
search query: Adium

site: apple.com/retail/, the Apple Retail Store
search query: Apple

site: apple.com/iphone/ads/, the iPhone TV ad gallery (http://www.apple.com/iphone/gallery/ads/everyone/)
search query: iPhone

site: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs, the Wikipedia article for Steve Jobs
search query: Steve Jobs

site: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Word, the Wikipedia article for Microsoft Word
search query: Microsoft Word

site: mail.google.com, Gmail home
search query: Gmail

site: www.gmonline.demon.co.uk/cscene/CS7/CS7-05.html, an introductory article to Objective-C
search query: Objective-C

site: foxnews.com/politics/, politics home on Fox News
search query: Fox News

site: football365.com, Football365 home (a soccer web site)
search query: football

site: startrek.com, the official home of the Star Trek franchise
search query: Star Trek

The internet could use more advanced algorithms.