A trusted source pointed me to this tidbit, which I did not know. It’s dated 2 August, 2006:
FAST signs contract with YouTube, Inc
Fast Search & Transfer ASA (FAST) today announced that YouTube, Inc. signed an agreement to deploy FAST for Site Search, based on the FAST Enterprise Search Platform (FAST ESP) to power the search for YouTube.com.
Clearly YouTube was focusing on how to scale its service and deal with its rather limited search capabilities. FAST, which I have covered here, is well known for powering large, database- and structured-search-driven sites.
According to folks who would know, the FAST deal has not yet been implemented. I wonder, will Google use FAST for YouTube? Will it just pay out FAST? Can it do what FAST can do for YouTube?
I have notes in to folks asking…will let you know when/if I do.
Please ask them how customized the planned solution was. If it was just them throwing standard search at the problem then I can’t imagine it would be all that compelling.
Enterprise search is really not that exciting. User experience with products from companies like FAST, Autonomy (Verity) has been far inferior from what people have come to expect from GYM. My take: Google will junk FAST contract with YouTube. The company is anyway under investigation for creative revenue reporting.
My experience from using FAST technology is very good — would be a shame if YouTube has to implement an inferior solution from Google just because of this. I thought Google was going to improve the YouTube experience, not make it worse.