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May 5, 2005Interview with Phillip Lan, CEO of Brilliant Shopper
Metasearch engines, which aggregate multiple search sources, have been around for years in the area of general web search. Currently, the Open Directory Project lists 49 metasearch sites and 36 multi-search sites, while the Yahoo Directory has 96 all-in-one search listings. But in the area of shopping comparison, this is a new development. Like many people in shopping comparison, Phillip cited "opportunity from frustration" as motivation for starting his company. They key to making shopping easy, he said, is to focus on an intuitive interface. (Disclaimer: I agree.) He added that comparison shopping engines need to find a way to scale better, to leverage crawling technology better. So far, so good. Now, for all the philisophical agreement during the interview, honestly, the week before the interview, I did not know what to think of this site. At the time, it appeared to be a straightforward integration of two feeds, with no hint of the evolution of shopping. But since that time, Brilliant Shopper has added several feeds, including Coupons, Product Reviews and Product Forums. Now that is what I'm talking about! As for its its overall effectiveness as a shopping tool, I think it is much too early to evaluate. The point is they appear to be moving in the right direction, towards an integration of diverse shopping sources. That, coupled with an explosion of syndication technology, could make Brilliant Shopper a site to watch. "The site comes along every hour," Phillip says. + + + Question & Answer Q: What do you say to arguments that this is not a sustainable business model... that is would be easy to duplicate? A: (bulleted summary) Q: Do you plan to support browsers like Firefox, post-beta? A: Yes, definitely, it is in the works. Q: When do you plan to leave beta? A: Q3 + + + see also: coverage:
Interview with Phillip Lan, CEO of Brilliant Shopper
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