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Cuil

Im sure you have heard the terms google killer over and over again. This time that phrase is being used to describe Cuil a search engine designed and built by a former google alumni. Now according to those who have beta tested it, cuil produces some very interesting results. While the results are these most important thing, Cuils claim to fame is that they have the largest number of indexed pages in the world. Now that is no mean feat however most people would argue that quality trumps quantity any day.

Having used the search engine a few times now as part of the testing effort, i can tell you that it is not going to be a google killer, at least not in its current form. But much like google was in its early days it will grow and as kinks are ironed out and search engine results are improved, it will grow.

I am also led to believe by insiders at both google and cuil that the term google killer was actually pushed by google itself. Why you might ask, well apparently there is impending anti-trust action against google and while they have a monopoly on search traffic and advertising, they are looking to play up the fact that the dominance they currently enjoy is just a single new search engine launch away. While i might agree with that assesment of how easy it can be for a giant to fall in this interenet driven age, cuil is definitely not that search engine.

UPDATE: Cuil has launched, go give it a go for yourself.

ZDNet

There are a lot of tech blogs out there on the internet these days. So much so that in order to be able to keep track of what is going on in multiple fields it involves having to monitor a lot of sites.  No so when it comes to the tech blogs at ZDnet. There are several bloggers each with the their own sub blogs covering every major category in the tech landscape as you would need. Interested in all that is Microsoft, Mary Foley is an avid Microsoft follower and will give you the latest and indepth scoop. And like her, there are many others who are specialists in the fields they cover.

The other really useful feature is that the writers themselves respond to comments themselves. Most blogs that i have seen, especially the tech blogs written by experts, never ever reply to their comments, it is very rare and is usually done only to apologize for an error or to defend a position. I have posted comments and got replies from the writer explaining to me what i wanted to know.

While you will still need to visit other sites to get certain other perspectives. ZDNet gives you the bet basic coverage you would ever find on the internet. This is my primary news source for tech news and so much more.

Woopra

There are a great many websites out there that deal with displaying and analyzing website statistics. From the uber popular Google Analytics to the most basic stats packages like Awstats that come with your web hosting account. All of them serve the basic purpose of showing you how many visitors you had, when, where they went, where they came from, so on and so forth. It was only a matter of time before a start up would attempt to shake the established order and take the process one step further. Enter Woopra. Woopra takes the game to the next level, not only do you get state of the art real time visitor tracking from the website, but they introduced a game changing feature, they made a software package which will show you all that you need and more in real time from multiple sites.

One of the best features is the realtime visitor view. From this view you can watch in realtime as your visitor traverses your site. Every page he goes to, how long he spends on each page. You could even tag this visitor and monitor his future visits as well. Another interesting but controversial feature is the ability to chat to your visitors. Now most people would not take this intrusion very lightly and are bound never to come to your website again, but it might prove useful someday, though i still cant imaging what that use might be.

For the moment Woopra is in beta test and can only be used via invitation or an application process which can take some time. But once in use, it will keep you staring at your stats day in and day out. For those of you with multiple sites and the willingness to improve your site by drilling down your stats into the slightest detail will really enjoy using this product. Even after official release there is expected to be a free package.