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Man oh man, it sure would have come in handy on more than a few occasions!

ChaCha, the human powered search engine, is pretty nifty. I remember hearing about this a few months ago, but admit I had never actually tried it. The concept is this: you text a question to  the ChaCha short code… any question, and minute or so later, sometimes less, you get an answer.  I guess the best way to explain this service is a little Q&A. I know, I’ll just ask ChaCha to explain itself. I do this by texting questions to 242242(chacha). This will be the easiest post I have ever written.

Question: So, what exactly is ChaCha?

Answer: ChaCha’s human guides search the web to answer questions that you call in or text. ChaCha is free and makes money via advertising.

Question: How long has it been around?

Answer: ChaCha’s desktop search service launched Sept. 2006. Our mobile answers text service launched on 1/3/08. Thanks for your interest! http://chacha.com/u/pge0fzvv

Question: How many people work as searchers for Cha Cha?

Answer: ChaCha has 10,000 active guides, with thousands searching each week and hundreds online at any time! Thanks for using ChaCha! http://chacha.com/u/12509637

OOOKEEEEEE. Lets try something harder.

Question: Define the word “Taxonomy”

Answer: the science of classification of organisms on the basis of their supposed evolutionary relationships. http://chacha.com/u/0e8mxzi0

Question: How many people live in Mount Sterling, Ohio?

Answer: Population is 1,863. Thanks for using ChaCha. http://chacha.com/u/p3xby53z

Dang it. This is pretty good.

Question: What is the Velocity of a migrating sparrow?

Answer: The average velocity of a migrating White-crowned Sparrow is 60-65 km/day. Thanks for using ChaCha, and have a great day! http://chacha.com/u/ap4y4a4n

WRRROOOOONNG! They should have asked whether I was referring to the African or European species. Oy, Just kidding! You, no doubt, see where I am going with this little bit of geekery. But let me just say, I am impressed with the speed and accuracy of the answers and I think this is a great, simple, organic, and most importantly, HUMAN service. It sounds like a cliched business slogan but it really is “real people answering real questions”.

Their multi-channel approach of web, voice and text access, makes it really useful. And with most answers clocking in under a minute, it’s pretty efficient.

Now all they need is a Windows Mobile Homescreen plugin, and I’m set. I’ll throw away every informational book in my house, pile them all in the front yard, dowse them in gasoline and burn them in effigy, freaking out my neighbors and celebrating a new personal era of LAZINESS and informational EXCESS!!.!!!….

Wait, wait, wait a minute!

Well… no. I guess I wouldn’t really do that.

There is still something to be said about learning from your own total, trusted efforts. Something special remains in “good, old-fashioned reading and research”.

I still wish they would have had this around when I was in school.

Jay Donovan (50 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook