Boston, MA. September 18, 2007 -- Compete, Inc., a leading online consumer market research firm, today announced that Eric Richard has joined the company as vice president of engineering. Richard joins Compete from Idiom Technologies, a globalization management company, where he oversaw technology integration and product research and development.

"Eric is one of the original creators of the web analytics industry,” said Don McLagan, president, chairman and CEO, Compete, Inc. "Joining our management team, Eric will help Compete in its goal to be the leading provider of marketing insights from consumers’ online behavior.”

Prior to serving as vice president of engineering at Idiom Technologies, Richard was CTO and VP of Engineering of Cambridge-based NetGenesis (now part of SPSS), the web analytics company he co-founded in 1994. The success of NetGenesis, considered by many to be the pioneer of today’s web analytics, earned Richard recognition in 2001 as a finalist in the Ernst & Young New England Entrepreneur of the Year Awards. In addition to his entrepreneurial accomplishments, Richard is a recognized leader in the Internet development industry. He is the principal author of "How to Build a Web site," the first technical resource guide for Web site developers, and he created and built the award-winning "Sports Information Service," the first sports resource site on the Web. Prior to NetGenesis, Richard worked at IBM's Almaden Research Center, where he developed handwriting recognition software.

At Compete, Richard will oversee technology strategy, including the development of new products, such as Search Analytics™, a Web-based resource delivering the industry’s richest search on a revolutionary pay-as-you-go basis, and www.compete.com, the leading resource for online consumer behavior insights.

"I was fortunate to be deeply involved in web analytics during the early days in the mid 1990s, when NetGenesis laid the foundation for the industry Compete leads today. It is exciting to see how both the technology and its usage have evolved since then,” said Eric Richard, vice president of engineering, Compete, Inc. "Today, web analytics insights are indispensable for marketers seeking to understand and profitably engage customers, and no company is driving innovation in this space more than Compete."

Richard is based in Boston. He can be reached for comment at erichard@compete.com.

Richard succeeds former vice president of engineering and CTO, David Cancel who left Compete to start a new company. Cancel will remain an advisor to Compete in his role as Compete Fellow.

About Compete, Inc.
Compete helps the world’s top brands infuse their marketing with the online behavior of millions of consumers. Leading marketers such as Carlson Hotels Worldwide, Hyundai Motor America, Upromise, DaimlerChrysler, and Verizon Wireless rely on Compete’s services to create effective online experiences and highly profitable advertising campaigns. Compete’s online behavior database – the largest in the industry – makes the web as engrained in marketing as it is in people’s lives.

Compete was founded in 2000 and is located in Boston, MA, with offices throughout the U.S.

For more information about us, please visit www.competeinc.com, or to join the conversation visit compete.com.