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A newer search engine made its debut this week called Leapfish.com.  Those that recall the launch of cuil a while back know that it wasn’t received well by many online critics.  Does another newcomer within the search arena have enough traction to become a mainstay?

As a search engine marketing guru, cuil did very little for me in the way of persuading me to use the search engine on a regular basis.  Although cuil’s search engine interface resembled many popular search engines, their search results were totally in a league of their own, which in my opinion was asking a lot from an average search engine user to switch over to.  Additionally, recent times suggest that relevancy is one of the most important key factors in winning the search engine wars over having the largest index, a portal like homepage, or more advanced search features.  So when I heard about Leapfish’s transformation from a former domain appraisal site into a search engine, my interest was sparked with a bit of skepticism.

Unlike cuil, Leapfish doesn’t rely on its own search technology and closely resembles a typical search engine interface.  Users should feel right at home with the ability to select search results from Google, Yahoo, and MSN.  But the real attraction lies within Leapfish’s unique interface that offers users more than search results such as news, questions and answers, videos, and more.  A search for “marketing companies” for example, included a couple of press releases, YouTube videos, images, and shopping results.  As such, Leapfish may be better classified as a universal search engine for its ability to aggregate related content into search results.

What’s more interesting than Leapfish’s search results however, is its monetization model.  Leapfish offers businesses the ability to permanently own sponsored keyword spots ranging from generic to long tail keyword phrases.  Pricing for keywords vary, but isn’t too dissimilar from the current supply and demand scenario. Typical registration fees are around $1000 and keywords can be purchased from a 1 –3 position.  From that point, sponsors may choose to sell their sponsorship to another company…much like domain name buying and selling.

For myself, Leapfish offers a unique experience, however I’m not entirely sure if and when I would make a switch.  After all, if it were all about great search technology and terrific add-ons, then AOL would likely be leading the race.  In any regards, I think Leapfish is definitely worth looking at.  Its unique but intuitive interface gives it an edge over recent search engine launches.

Last week marked the launch of a total new search animal named cuil. Developed by ex Google and Altavista engineers, cuil promises to be…well “Cool.” Although I’m not sure exactly where I first read about cuil, I quickly clicked on the link to visit this new revolutionary search engine. With eager anticipation, I began doing searches that I knew our company ranked for in Google. First “business blogs”, yielded mixed results. Currently, we rank #2 in Google (www.iblogbusiness.com) for this keyword term. However, as the picture depicts below, our site isn’t ranked above the fold.

This raises an interesting question. Does cuil rank sites left to right or top to bottom? Because below the fold, we rank #3 or #6 depending on how you look at it. Since most search engines read top to bottom, I guess I would count it at a 3, but cuil’s layout certainly doest draw my eyes down there. Additionally, Google returns over 83 million web-pages for this keyword, where cuil only delivered a mere 83 thousand. Since one of the main points this engine claims is number of pages in its index, i was puzzled to see such a low number by comparison.

What I really found disappointing was that i couldn’t find our parent company TMA E-Marketing on the first page by doing a simple search with our company name “tmaemarketing.” Shouldn’t that be a dead ringer to find your website or am I missing the point here? Nevertheless, cuil has been bombarded by mixed results from the entire blogging and web community. From what i have gathered, most of it doesn’t seem to be all that positive. But given the competitive search engine landscape, I wasn’t expecting a newcomer to be welcomed by the red carpet. Needless to say, it will be interesting to see how cuil fares in the long run.

On a completely different note, I bumped into a website called Hulu. Now I’m not sure if i have been just living under a rock, but it wasn’t until recently that i ran into this website that has one of the most compelling business models I have seen in a while. In my defense, I know I’m not the only one, because I asked several other youngster’s if they have come across this website and nearly everyone said no.

Why i found this site to be so intriguing is that its the first of its kind that features full featured TV shows and movies. As a Family Guy nut, It was love at first site. As you probably have encountered when searching for videos online, most copyrighted content that’s worth watching is a no-no that that has been ripped down for copyright infringement. Not the case with Hulu. You can watch your favorite shows because they have been sponsored by companies that inject commercials during your video session. Sure, we would all love commercials to disappear, but I’ll take them as long as i can watch free TV online. Now only if my iphone (which I ordered on Saturday) would get here!