FAST & Telus.

Telus selects Fast Search & Transfer as it's search engine provider.

[lazerzubb]

[fast.no...]

Sounds good.

[heini]

Yup - alberta.com, mBC.com, myTO.com, and Globetrotter.com all get FAST results. That's West Canada, with some 3 Mill. unique monthly users.

Says Fast's Rob Rubin: “Not only will we provide Web search capabilities, but we will also provide additional search offerings and revenue opportunities to enable the TELUS portals to achieve their business objectives.”

So after the loss of Sympatico Fast is back on Canada. It sure is not a major deal, but after acquiring FirstGov it's another non-european success.

BTW: Does anybody know who has been dropped as search provider?

[Macguru]

>>So after the loss of Sympatico Fast is back on Canada.

heini, please don't make me feel like it's groundhog's day again! :)

Before they switched to Google, Sympatico's SERPs had so little to do with Fast's. It was some local Lycos inferior sub-product tainted with a spammy blend of DirectHit and advertisement. Since it wasn't even cropped it was pure crap! Sympatico's decision was more a cover up of their own incompetence combined with the fact that Fast revenue model was not ready for adoption then. No wonder, I never saw anything official about the switch on Bell's corporate site, or anywhere else.

Back on topic, I am glad about the Telus deal, they are also strong in eastern Canada. Plus, it makes me feel that my eggs are not all in Google's basket.

[stn24]

>> Does anybody know who has been dropped as search provider?

They used to be altavistacanada.com, but that agreement expired and they returned altavistacanada.com to altavista.com.

[heini]

Ah - thanks stn24, I was really waiting for that info. Altavista dropped, hmmm. While the AV algo in theory is not bad, the engine is not in good shape. Another reason for switching to FAST could be in the possibility of offering their own version of PartnerSite, just like Lycos does.