Alacritude Takes the FAST Track to Power eLibrary and Encyclopedia.com Searches
Online premium research and reference provider Alacritude has chosen to power its online searches using the FAST Data Search platform for both its eLibrary and Encyclopedia.com properties, according to FAST. The FAST technology is well suited to Alacritude's needs, which span professional, academics and consumers looking for a reasonably priced alternative for access to a broad range of premium content. FAST plays a strong second fiddle to Google and others on the public Web, but in institutional settings where more finely tuned searching and indexing is required to meet the needs of professionals trying to locate premium content and to track its usage effectively, FAST is a smart step to take to get more of a thoughful, premium feel to search results. For highly structured content such as the journals and papers in eLibrary's collection, this is a good move, just as Google and other engines more focused on unstructured content have their own strengths. A properly matched search engine is essential to online success, but it cannot replace the need for content that's worth the price of admiission. Finding what you're looking for has to assume that your needle is actually in the haystack - which is why so many people still prefer the open Web for finding facts to higher quality but more limited subscriptions sources. Hopefully more services will combine the strengths of the open Web and premium content not just for technology, but for content, as well.