Bunch of fives: forgotten search engines

In the week that saw the birth of Bing we take a look at five search ‘superstars’ that failed to outpunch Google.

Cuil
One of the most short-lived was Cuil (pronounced cool). It was trumpeted as the ‘world’s biggest search engine’. But where is it now? Who uses it? And er, does anyone care?

MSN Live
Did Johnny dunk? [He’s gonna dunk someday isn’t he?]. We’re talking to you Steve Ballmer. Now ripe for abandonment as Redmond’s Daddy Warbucks takes Bing under his sweaty wing, MSN Live can forget about ‘Tomorrow’.

AltaVista
Dear old AltaVista – the search engine owned by Yahoo was once one of the most popular and in its day ahead of its time. But we all lose our sparkle as time goes by. At some point we will be saying: Hasta la vista old timer.

Lycos
You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Once a geek’s best friend, it seems to have lost its bark. The European arm shut down its email service and website creating and hosting tool in January. Has it had its day?

Ask Jeeves

The question on the lips is always – “did the butler do it?” It seems in this case not. Despite reinventing himself more times than Madonna, he was unceremoniously sacked. Now rehired and re-attired with a trendier look, the old boy’s struggling to hang on to Google’s coat tails