Knowing (What You’re Doing) is Half the Battle.

January 13, 2009

CVGadget is a search engine aggrigator that pulls together and organizes search results for any name. Really, it’s just an organized way to Google yourself.

It’s not perfect. For example, using my name, clicking on “Blogs (By Google)” brings up six entries - literally, six blog posts from one of the three blogs I contribute to. And as Cuil.com proved, image search can be a pain - of the 17 image search results that pop up, only six are connected to my name or any of the sites I write for. And, naturally, anyone with a common name is going to find trouble searching for specifics, just as with Google (My friend John Scott brings up 200,000 results).

On the other hand, it does correctly identify my Facebook, MySpace and Linked profiles, and “Documents (By Google)” brings up .pdf and .doc files with my name embedded within.

It has potential. But it suffers from two crucial flaws.

1. It’s being done better elsewhere. Why go to a special site to Google yourself when you can, you know, just Google yourself?

2. It’s not ready to receive public scrutiny. It’s not complete. It’s not ready for launch. Search problems aside, it hasn’t even been proofed.

Video's

Video’s. Yup.

Technology, like creative marketing, is only as good as the first time you encounter it. There are too many choices. Too many distractions. If something doesn’t work correctly the first time you try it, you’re significantly less inclined to return. First impressions, after all.

If your first attempt is Bush League, you’ll forever be branded as Bush League until you can prove us wrong. And it’ll be harder to convince us the second time around. There’s a reason most people haven’t returned to Cuil.com since their first visit. They may have fixed everything, turning the site into the Google Killer it was supposed to be. But I’ll never know. It’s not worth my time to check.

Your customers. Your targets. Your bosses. Competition is rising, and resources are dropping. I don’t want to pick on CVGadget - after all, there are thousands of similar examples out there. Examples that feature unsound techniques, incomplete thinking and “good enough” execution.

With CVGadget, the unpredictability of the search results and the oversight in spelling won’t kill the site. But it will damper its respectability, painting the site as an unprofessional application that’s worth a look but not worth the time it will take to integrate it into your life. It’s “good enough.”

Unfortunately, “good enough” isn’t good enough anymore.

(Via brandflakesforbreakfast.)

By Corey

Filed Under Technology, Criticism

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