Anybody heard of Cuil? It is pronounced as “cool” (we thought it was cuill) and is the brainchild of Ann Patterson, ex-google engineer whose last search engine technology was itself bought by Google in 2004 and incorporated in it’s own system. Patterson isn’t selling this time, relying instead on a $33 million venture capital to try and eclipse the search engine giant.

Patterson (who was disenchanted with Google), her husband Tom Costello, Russell Energy, and Louis Monier (the last 2 also ex-google engineers), have been laboring quietly the past year to create what they believe is the most comprehensive and efficient search engine yet, with an index that covers 120 billion Web pages. Google has stopped counting the pages it has indexed at around 8 billion but still believe they have the largest database.

Patterson, of course, isn’t disclosing the formula of how Cuil has developed such a broader network with a much smaller number of computers. A search engine index is important because the information, pictures and the contents cannot be found unless they are stored in a database.

However, Cuil’s ace isn’t a bunch of codes crunching numbers in a frenzy but the promise that it will retain no specific information about their users. A Google spokesperson has delivered the usual “competition is good for the masses” speech but analysts say this is the first time, and probably not the last, that they are up against one of their own.

120 billion pages… we took Cuil for a trial run to see what those pages are with the keyword “oronjo,” which has brought in visitors for ReapMoneyOnline.com from Google. Check out the Google screenshot below. That’s 3,890 pages for “oronjo” and ReapMoneyOnline is 7th from the top.

Now, the screenshot below is the last page for the “oronjo” search in Cuil. It says 879 results with nothing about ReapMoneyOnline. We did notice something with this search, certain blogs/websites came up in almost every page. Try it. Any ideas why they do? Does this make a Cuil search more relevant?

We’d certainly welcome another player in the field of relevant search engine results. We do hope Patterson and her gang is on to something. Maybe an end to search engine gaming?

So what do everybody think about Cuil? Will it succeed where Yahoo and MSN failed?

Forums or bulletin boards are still popular as venues for online interaction. Building a bulletin board from scratch is relatively easy to do, simply slap together a domain name, a web host, and a free forum script. Initially populating is even easier with some paid forum posters. It’s keeping the members active that is more difficult.

Usually, new members stay active for a month or 2 before they found another forum.

1. Appropriate forum script and theme.

Different niches or kinds of members have different needs. A mature crowd don’t need a lot of features and a clean theme thus, the vanilla forum or phun bulletin board might be better for them. Young gamers may want a forum script with all the bells and whistles and are partial to phpBB3 with a gradient-filled skin.

2. Encourage and reward heroism.

Attila the Hun classified his men into heroes, officers, and soldiers. Identify the heroes of a forum and reward them with special benefits. A lot of the members respects them and will stay if they do. Benefits need not be monetary in nature, a different username color or graphics under the avatar will do.

3. Reward loyalty.

Set-up a reward program for the members with the most number of posts in a month and the ones who have remained active the longest in the forum. People like to be recognized for their efforts and a Member of the Month or Member of the Year will do that.

4. Engage the members.

The best and most active forums we have seen are the ones where the Admins and Moderators regularly engage the community members. They don’t merely watch from the sidelines. As a side benefit, Admins and Mods can post keyword-focused content for better SEO.

5. Implement suggestions.

A bulletin board is not exactly a democracy but members will be more active if they fell like they are part of the decision-making process. Take their ideas seriously and implement the better ones. Create a fanfare when implementing a member’s suggestions and announce who made it possible.

6. Prizes and freebies.

Don’t we just love contests and freebies? Hold a contest regularly or whenever board activity is dropping low. The best prizes are those that will promote our online communities at the same time. How about a t-shirt with the logo and name of our forum emblazoned across its front?

7. Debate section.

Sharing opinion and ideas is another thing we love. We have to be careful with a debate section though. A set of rules and guidelines need to be established beforehand to avoid a flame war erupting from it.

8. Chat system.

We don’t know why members, especially the younger ones, would demand a chat system when they are already on a bulletin board. It seems that chatting is a different from posting. If a chat system will make them stay in our forum longer, then it is worth installing.

9. Games.

This is also a most requested feature by members. We can have scripts where they can keep and compare scores. A monthly competition with prizes is even better.

10. Email announcement.

We get the members’ email address during registration for one reason: email marketing. We use it to get everybody’s attention when activity drops low. Planning to hold a contest or rewarding a member? Announce it through email and watch curious members trickle in.

Bonus: Share the profit.

Profit-sharing may not fit into our overall scheme for making money online with a forum. However, people will work better if they are reward for their efforts. We’ve been asked why should we give up AdSense as our primary income generation strategy in forums. We replied that members usally doesn’t click them anyway and if they do, there’s a chance of our account getting banned becasue  AdSense migth interprete regularclicks from the same IPs as click-fraud. So it’s better to give it to the community. Even if it doesn’t make them much money, they’ll feel that they are part of the system.