Search Engine Powered by Human
Thursday, January 17, 2008 by PPV
A human being answering your queries. And, as long as an answer can be found online, ChaCha promises that a "guide," reached by sending a text message to 242242 (CHACHA), will respond in an average of 3 minutes, though some answers take 10 minutes or longer.
The service has about 5,000 freelance "guides", and ChaCha is working to make at least 500 are always online.
ChaCha is free for now, but the company plans to start charging $5 to $10 a month after 10 free queries starting in the spring. In contrast, Google's SMS service is free but can troll only for automated information such as phone numbers, stock quotes, currency conversions and weather updates.
The service has about 5,000 freelance "guides", and ChaCha is working to make at least 500 are always online.
ChaCha is free for now, but the company plans to start charging $5 to $10 a month after 10 free queries starting in the spring. In contrast, Google's SMS service is free but can troll only for automated information such as phone numbers, stock quotes, currency conversions and weather updates.
