Guruza aims to differentiate amongst ranks of expert Q&A services

Guruza is an expert question and answer service focusing on technical questions. I recently spoke with their co-founders Rich Collins and Adam Thorsen. You can listen to the podcast by clicking here (MP3, 4.9MB, 17 minutes). Guruza joins a host of other services that are attempting to do a similar thing. The main difference is that Guruza provides presence information about its experts so you can engage in instant messaging conversations rather than significant delays associated with many answer websites. Guruza was featured on TechCrunch recently.

The service is definitely in its early stages with about 250 questions posted. It is nevertheless interesting to look at services that are trying to establish themselves as being different in a market with so many competitors. The bottom line is that it is very challenging to differentiate in a way that will provide lasting competitive edges.

Guruza podcast questions:

1. What is Guruza and where do you want to take it? (0:15)
2. You talk about catering to experts. Can you tell us how you serve experts better than anyone else? (1:28)
3. How do you get enough quality questions onto the site with enough people willing to pay money, especially given Google's and Yahoo's answer services? (2:34)
4. So you offer experts the opportunity to make money. Can you speak to the competitive position of Guruza given services like eLance on one end where some people post questions in addition to big projects? (4:18)
5. How many questions do you have posted? (5:36)
6. Historically speaking, there have been a lot of expert question sites that have popped up and disappeared. What were the key mistakes they made? (8:01)
7. A key competitive advantage you have mentioned is your service offering presence. In terms of experts being available, are many experts on your site available at any given time? (9:48)
8. What has been your thinking about human behavior with respect to experts answering questions on the site that do not take long to answer where they may not be an opportunity for a relationship to develop? (10:48)
9. What are some examples of typical questions you expect to find on Guruza? (12:28)
10. Where do you guys see Guruza a year from now? (15:04)