{"id":234,"date":"2008-07-29T23:04:49","date_gmt":"2008-07-29T22:04:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jurecuhalev.com\/blog\/?p=234"},"modified":"2008-07-29T23:04:49","modified_gmt":"2008-07-29T22:04:49","slug":"cuil-wheres-the-social-media-in-the-launch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jurecuhalev.com\/blog\/cuil-wheres-the-social-media-in-the-launch\/","title":{"rendered":"Cuil – where’s the social media in the launch?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tagging:<\/a>Image by nattu<\/a> via Flickr<\/span><\/div>\n

It’s now more than a day since Cuil<\/a>, the latest hyped Google killer launched, and we can reflect on looking at how that went.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

What I’m wondering is why did they miss the whole social media<\/a> aspect of launching a new service. They are clearly not active in this space, with their Twitter account @cuil<\/a> having 22 followers but not even a single message.<\/p>\n

Here are 5 simple things any startup can do make their presence more human and accessible:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Make us of top 5 currently most active social media services: Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook and two lesser known from your field.\n
      \n
    1. b) Actually link to these pages from your page<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n
    2. Get a strong presence with real people at GetSatisfaction<\/a>, to quickly and easily answer their questions and reassure them about their problems (with extra points for actually fixing them).<\/li>\n
    3. Provide a human face to your “Contact us<\/a>” section. Provide personal email of your community manager, with extra points for his or hers picture next to it. Shipping address is not<\/strong><\/span> the most important part of that page.<\/li>\n
    4. Have a blog (yes, this is different from News and press<\/a> boring PR messages).<\/li>\n
    5. Be part of discussions on other pages. (TechCrunch Cuil news<\/a> has 260+ comments. Not a single answer from the authors)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      What’s even more interesting is the fact that Chris Brogan wrote a post<\/a>, 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<\/a> managed to find a time to comment on that post and provide their side of the story.<\/p>\n

      Why is there not a single answer from the creators on the web (besides the seemingly highly paid articles in semi-traditional media)?<\/p>\n

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