LookSmart and Cal Athletics in partnership · 12 June 04

LookSmart and the University of California, Berkeley, today announced a partnership under which LookSmart will develop a branded web search property for Cal Athletics.

This deal will support the university’s athletic programs, while supplying highly relevant search results to Cal students and alumni.

Beginning this summer at CalBears.com, CalBearsSearch.com and via a toolbar application, CalBears Search™ will provide results powered by LookSmart’s proprietary search technologies and 1.2 billion URL index.

Each time users click on a paid listing, a portion of the revenue will go to support Cal Athletics. CalBears Search™ will also feature free access to LookSmart’s full text article database.

“Cal becomes the first major university with its own branded search engine,” said Steve Gladstone, director of athletics. “Students, alumni and Bear Backers will perform their web searches here, knowing the ad revenue that is generated will directly support our commitment to excellence and rise to national prominence.”

Cal Athletics will promote CalBears Search to Cal’s 20,000 faculty and staff and 165,000 alumni living in the Bay Area through an integrated radio, print and interactive marketing campaign.

Solomon Fulp, director of corporate partnerships for Cal Athletics said the university selected LookSmart as its partner based on their flexibility, “LookSmart demonstrated the ability to develop a world-class, branded web search property that becomes a valuable asset both for the athletics department and the university.”

Damian Smith, CEO of LookSmart, said the relationship would give advertisers a new source of high quality search traffic at a reasonable price.

“UC Berkeley, its students, staff and alumni have been responsible for critical advances in Internet technology and are among the most knowledgeable and influential web users. We’re honored to partner with Cal Athletics for this groundbreaking program.”

Source: LookSmart

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