From Wendy Boswell,
Your Guide to Web Search.
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I recently had the chance to interview Mr. Steven Marder, CEO of Eurekster.com. We talked by instant messenger and I decided to leave it in that format since it was such a fun read (IM handles have been changed, however, as well as the really horribly glaring spelling and grammatical errors).

Interview with Steven Marder of Eurekster

Wendy Boswell: hello

Steven Marder: Hi

WB: I haven't used IMing in a hundred years seems like

SM: we use it alot....as part of or company is based in New Zealand

SM: and we have clients/ partners around the world

WB: oh that's right - I was in Mr. Ryan's presentation at SES, and he mentioned New Zealand

SM: yes.....his accent might have given away that he is not from around here

SM: what did you think about that panel?

WB: very interesting mix. Nice to hear about the exciting stuff going on with personalized search; I believe that it's pretty inevitable that search will be ultra-personalized in the very near future.

SM: agreed.....

SM: though the offerings from the big players all seemed to blend together

SM: and all required some type of active behavior by the users

WB: yes-but I think that if done right, every search tool will offer something different, unique to users...much like they're doing now. Competition tends to do that.

SM: true....differentiation is always key

SM: at least perceived differentiation

SM: branding

WB: so in that line of thought, what makes Eurekster stand out?

SM: a few things.....

SM: we are not building a destination....so we're not driving traffic specifically to Eurekster.com

SM: we are enabling a platform for publishers

SM: and allowing them to offer a personalized search experience to their community of users

WB: that's what SearchPublisher is all about, correct?

SM: yes

SM: in addition users do not need to register, login, tag or do anything other than search

SM: as they are doing today

SM: so the active vs passive is the key to differentiation

SM: from a user's perspective

WB: what are the main benefits of using Eurekster over other personalized search tools - say I was a complete newbie to searching the Web and had no idea how to go about it, what would be the main pull-in of Eurekster for me?

SM: newbies and the rest of us just want to find what we are looking for....quickly and efficiently

WB: true

SM: so, for some general searches and surfing, starting at a general search engine like Google or Yahoo is great

Continue to page two for more of this interview.