Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

I still haven't figured out exactly what one of their edicts - "popularity is useful but not always but important" - actually means, like a lot of the other marketese, but Cuil is here.

It has a pleasing look (with a main blank black page, direct contrast to Google while still getting the non-clutter concept), and some handy features like search suggestions in the search box, and an appealing privacy policy that notes that they don't save any user information or even have search logs.

The search results seem a bit strange though. The main thing that I noticed is that the pictures they put with each search are often contradictory to the search topic. They say they take pictures from the relevant pages for the topics, but it looks like ads, and even little RSS logos and so on, often end up as THE picture for a particular result (annoying). I also don't really like the columnar result layout - even though they justify that saying most people process information better that way (I also like more results per page, which a single list layout seems to be better suited for).

Cuil (pronounced "cool"?) is an old Irish word for knowledge, apparently. It's a new twist on search, and it has been founded by a group of ex-Googlers.

(Side note, I am running across a lot of "ex-Googlers" lately, what's the deal with that?)