Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Service Texts You Answers to Any Question

You're in a bar with a group of friends when an argument breaks out about Neil Diamond's age. Your friend is positive that he's, like, a hundred. You know he can't be more than 70. With no Internet access, how do you find out how old the balladeer is? You can ask the mobile search engine ChaCha. And the answer sent to your cell phone will settle the debate: "Neil Diamond is 67 years old." Your friend now owes you a beer. omputer-automated text message answer services like Google SMS have been around since 2004. But when ChaCha launched its text messaging service in January, it paired human employees with technology -- a method that has won the company several awards. Users text message ChaCha (242242) on their mobile phone or call 1-800-2ChaCha. The question can be on anything -- from local weather forecasts to who starred in the 1960 suspense classic "Psycho" to how many children Angelina Jolie has now.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/ptech/09/18/chacha.kgb/index.html

http://www.chacha.com/

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I agree that for the time being in mobile, humans are a great way help power search. I personally think the feeling and community "crowdsourcing" aspects of another site called Mosio are way better than ChaCha, but to each his own, it seems there is room for both in the marketplace.