Image by nattu via FlickrIt’s now more than a day since Cuil, the latest hyped Google killer launched, and we can reflect on looking at how that went.
According to TechCrunch and a number of other sources, it didn’t go too well, with their servers crashing a number of times. I’ve seen this also happen, failing to even load their most basic static pages, like general information.
What I’m wondering is why did they miss the whole social media aspect of launching a new service. They are clearly not active in this space, with their Twitter account @cuil having 22 followers but not even a single message.
Here are 5 simple things any startup can do make their presence more human and accessible:
- Make us of top 5 currently most active social media services: Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook and two lesser known from your field.
- b) Actually link to these pages from your page
- Get a strong presence with real people at GetSatisfaction, to quickly and easily answer their questions and reassure them about their problems (with extra points for actually fixing them).
- Provide a human face to your “Contact us” section. Provide personal email of your community manager, with extra points for his or hers picture next to it. Shipping address is not the most important part of that page.
- Have a blog (yes, this is different from News and press boring PR messages).
- Be part of discussions on other pages. (TechCrunch Cuil news has 260+ comments. Not a single answer from the authors)
What’s even more interesting is the fact that Chris Brogan wrote a post, mentioning that Google’s first hit for Cuil is a story how Cuil is not a threat to Google. While the web is big, Google’s own Matt Cutts managed to find a time to comment on that post and provide their side of the story.
Why is there not a single answer from the creators on the web (besides the seemingly highly paid articles in semi-traditional media)?
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