Friendster and Eurekster Join to Launch Personalized Internet Search Services on Friendster Online Community

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA and SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- 12/10/2004 -- Friendster® (www.friendster.com), the safe, fun and free online community that enables you to organize your social life, and Eurekster™ (www.eurekster.com), the first Internet search service powered by community and social networking technologies, today announced the launch of personalized Internet search and navigation services on Friendster networks in eight countries.

Friendster Search, powered by Eurekster, shows search results that have the added relevance of ranking based on preferences of Friendster members and their friends. Friendster’s more than 13 million users can now access personalized Internet search results continually updated in real time and based on their interests and preferences and those of their friends. In addition to search capabilities, this new functionality uniquely informs Friendster users of "What’s Hot" among their network of friends, alerting them to new Web destinations and topics of interest.

Friendster users can unite their searching of the Web around common themes, affording them a level of control, personalization and relevancy not available from other search engines. With this launch of Friendster Search powered by Eurekster, the leading online community now offers even greater personalization and relevancy. This new search functionality continuously learns from the search behavior of Friendster users and their social networks -- empowering them to actively participate in the determination of search results that are more relevant than those offered by existing search engines. Friendster users can confidentially and privately share their knowledge and experiences with each other, simply by using this new feature to search the Web and navigate to sites of their choosing.

Friendster Search powered by Eurekster showcases commercial and non-commercial search results from Yahoo! Search and Overture, combining the proven business model of Internet search with the powerful social networking movement. By personalizing search results, users can better find what they are seeking from the Internet and sponsor offers can be better targeted -- helping advertisers reach both mainstream and hard-to-reach audiences.

"This launch of Friendster Search powered by Eurekster truly furthers our vision of sharing the Internet with your friends. Friendster members are now able to easily find the Web destinations and information that matters most to them and their social networks" said Scott Sassa, President and CEO, Friendster. "This alliance clearly demonstrates one of the many ways social networking can enhance the Internet experience for millions of users, while generating multiple revenue streams"

"Word of mouth is a common and powerful way we search for and filter information in everyday life. By joining forces with Friendster, we bring this new search concept to millions of Friendster members, allowing them to share and learn from each other" said Steven E. Marder, CEO, Eurekster, Inc. "We’ve designed the Eurekster platform to scale with large user networks and communities in order to provide significant value to social networking services and major content providers as they seek to derive revenues from their user bases. Already these new search capabilities on Friendster have begun yielding extremely high conversion rates in excess of industry norms"

Friendster Search powered by Eurekster relies on patented Learning Search™ technology, keyword suggestion processes and patent-pending procedures that link search algorithms to social networks. Eurekster’s unique SearchMemory™ capability "remembers" the sites that users and their network of contacts have searched for and found useful, and surfaces them to the top for future searches.

Features now available on Friendster Search powered by Eurekster include:

-- Personalized Search Results Based on Usage by a Member’s Unique Social Network

-- Recent Searches Performed by a Member’s Social Network

-- The Most Popular "Hot" Searches Performed by a Member’s Social Network

-- Recent and Popular Searches Generated By All Other Friendster Members

About Friendster
With over 13 million members, Friendster is a free online service that enables you to make new friends, communicate with existing friends, share information, organize activities, find dates, and reconnect with lost friends. Friendster has received several industry awards, including Time Magazine’s 50 Coolest Websites of 2004 and Coolest Inventions of 2003, and had been nominated for the 2004 Wired Rave Awards and for a 2004 Webby Award. Friendster has also been profiled on CNN, CNBC, ABC and in many publications including Newsweek, Esquire, Rolling Stone, NY Times, and WSJ. Friendster is a privately held corporation headquartered in Mountain View, California and is backed by Kleiner Perkins, Benchmark Capital, Battery Ventures and individual investors.

About Eurekster

Eurekster, Inc. (www.eurekster.com), the leader in search personalization technologies, delivers Internet search results that matter most to users and their networks of friends and contacts, affinity groups and Internet communities. With Eurekster’s SearchParty™ platform, Web publishers and communities can deploy unique search functionality that is customized and personalized to the interests of their users and members. Eurekster continuously "learns" from the behavior of users to deliver the most relevant results and instantly share popular Web destinations and searches. The company’s services allow users to confidentially and privately share their knowledge and experiences with each other, simply by using Eurekster to search the Web and navigate to sites of their choosing. Eurekster relies on unique, patented technology and processes that link search algorithms to user communities and social networks. Privately held Eurekster, Inc. is headquartered in San Francisco, California with R&D facilities in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Contact Information

Robert Silverman

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Gramercy Strategies for Eurekster

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