Everyone’s doing the ChaCha!
By Michelle Dustin
You won’t need your dancing shoes to do this ChaCha, but you will need your mobile phone, an inquisitive mind and nimble fingers.
ChaCha, a free text message service launched in January 2008, provides prompt, colloquial answers to one’s inquiries. Want to know if the local coffee shop is open on Sundays? Need the conversion rate from Celsius to Fahrenheit? Looking for an appropriate wine to pair with a lobster dish? The answer is only a text message away.
Text ChaCha (242242) any question, anytime. Within minutes, an answer will be delivered via text message to your mobile phone¬—and it’s free, though standard carrier charges may apply.
Although ChaCha is not the first to provide timely, on-the-go information by way of text message, ChaCha differs from other mobile search engines currently available in that human interpretation is combined with computer intelligence to provide accurate, relevant responses. Other search engines, such as Google’s Mobile SMS (Short Message Service), utilize computer codes and algorithms to sort and discern information, limiting their interpretation and response abilities.
When ChaCha receives a text message, it is immediately routed to a human guide who specializes in the field that most fits the question being asked; fields such as diet and nutrition, celebrities, and finance and economy. Using ChaCha’s innovative search technique-social search, the guide quickly pinpoints the desired information and relays it back to you in a friendly, conversational manner.
The guides administering the nearly 300,000 text messages ChaCha receives daily are often college students, stay-at-home parents or retirees working from home on their own PCs. They are able to set their own work schedules and are paid an undisclosed amount for each response sent. Stephanie Lee, a ChaCha guide, informs that her employer deducts wages if responses aren’t sent quickly enough, and only specific ChaCha-approved search engines are allowed when seeking answers to users’ questions.
“The majority of users, more than 80 percent are under 25,” ChaCha’s Vice President of Marketing, Susan Marshall, says. The fact is, anyone with access to a mobile phone can use ChaCha’s services—it is helpful and easy to use. One user comments, “I find it quite useful. I can text a question, keep going about my day and then get the precise answer I need a few minutes later. It saves me time, because I can get stuff done instead of sifting through a bunch of different search results, which may or may not be relevant.”
This up-and-coming enterprise is based out of Carmel, Indiana, headed by Scott A. Jones, CEO and co-founder, and Brad Bostic, president and co-founder. Both have made considerable contributions to the technology and computer science fields. Jones assisted with the development of the standard voicemail system used today and had a hand in the company Gracenote, which provides iTunes with its album and song information. Bostic started a Web-based college textbook company in 1995, and has also established NearSource and NearMed, providing staff-outsourcing services throughout the US and Canada. The two have nurtured ChaCha into the ever-growing force it is today and they seem confident that their latest endeavor will continue to be a massive success.