Fast Search & Transfer has worked with AOL, Dell, and Vodafone, and calls itself “the leading global provider of search technologies.” And now Fast Search & Transfer has acquired AgentArts, which is a self-described “leading provider of recommendation and personalization solutions for music, video, games and mobile entertainment.”
Ugh. Business-speak language like that makes you want to move on to the next news item, I know. Yet there is interesting stuff here, as well, as the two companies will be working on one of the search industry’s holy grails – personalization.
“People not only want search to offer up relevant information, they also want and expect their favourite online services to understand their unique needs and provide different ways to discover additional relevant content,” said Andrew Coates, co-founder and CEO of AgentArts, in a press release.
“When you marry the world’s most powerful search engine, FAST ESP, with our recommendation and personalization technology, you can now offer the digital industry a powerful one stop solution to get their information in front of the right person at the right time,” he continued.
Of course, whether Fast and AgentArts can deliver on those promises remains to be seen; maybe, like that chap in the Indiana Jones movie, they’ll grab the wrong grail. Yet people like Greg Sterling, Matt Marshall, and Kevin Newcomb are taking note of this acquisition, so the resulting team should, like that film, be worth watching.
