ChaCha Search
There’s another new search player in the arena, and their name is ChaCha.
As the first search engine to connect people in real-time to produce relevant results, ChaCha provides users with a comfortable and familiar search experience that improves upon the shortcomings of first-generation search engines. ChaCha’s live human guides correspond with users via a real-time chat interface in order to provide only the most relevant search results.
HOW CHACHA WORKS: Powered by thousands of knowledgeable humans, when search queries are entered into ChaCha, the system automatically locates the best available guide to deliver personal and targeted results for users’ searches. Additionally, ChaCha users can choose to either “search with a guide” or get instant search results by tapping into ChaCha’s rapidly expanding index of human-generated results.
I’m not sure if I’d consider them the first if they’re still in Alpha, but maybe they are. Google Answers and Yahoo Answers may not be able to be considered purely a search engine.
To test the search, I searched for the phrase “the best cichlids to put in a tank” (I’m an aquarium hobbyist) and used the “Search With Guide” option. The interface quickly opened up and I was quickly connected to my Guide HeatherH. She let me know she would be helping me with my search and asked me what I needed help with, I then pointed her back to my search. Heather searched for a little bit and then gave me some results, which…. took her too long to come up with something.
Note: I was able to add ChaCha as a search provider very easily to my IE7 search bar, so that’s a plus. I’ll continue to try them out in the future.
A nice idea, and the speed was pretty quick. I believe once they really build up a team of Guides that truly can be considered knowledgeable and specialists in the areas I’m searching, this could be a great development in online search, particularly for the average internet user that needs that sort of help.
4 opinions for ChaCha Search
Grokodile
Nov 2, 2006 at 12:48 pm
It’s certainly interesting, but your description makes it sound like they go and search some other site, perhaps Google, and then give you links in real time?
Unless they are able to build up permanent resources in some way I just don’t understand the value of it…
Jason
Nov 2, 2006 at 8:11 pm
Grokodile, I agree. I think it’s a great idea, but the execution is where it’s going to sink or swim.
HollyS
Dec 18, 2006 at 12:14 pm
As a ChaCha guide, I am convinced ChaCha is here to stay. When we do a search, we have many resources at our finger tips, and the searching application just keeps getting better. Not only that, but our system learns from previous results, so the search results keep getting better and more relevant whether you use a guide or not. Students are seeing the benefit of ChaCha as it’s not only a safe search engine (we can’t look up explicit searches), but we can also send them highlighted text with their links, so that they don’t even have to click on the link to see their answer. Business professionals love ChaCha as they can multi-task while searching. They can even open up multiple ChaCha windows and send a whole army of guides to work for them. We, as guides, are also getting very good at nailing down the exact search terms you’ll need to find your best results. And don’t underestimate the fun factor. A lot of people “ChaCha” just because they enjoy it. We are definitely busier than ever, and I think the future of ChaCha is very bright.
Deameon
Feb 25, 2007 at 2:53 pm
Every search site is like a car. Each need there maintenance and all of that, and in the case of ChaCha, it just needs to get broken in.
As I have noticed, I tried a search a while ago, it took about 6 mins. Now I can say yeah, I can goto google and do it there.
But im gonna get alot of stuff I dont want.
Did the same question a while after the first one, it was up in 2 mins.
Im pretty sure alot of people, even the people reading this and responding know how to use the net and search. But there are alot of people that dont, and alot of people that might spend 30 mins looking for somthing through hundreds of pages or search results. As I can see ChaCha is getting tuned in on searches, there faster, and more in tune with the search question.
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