Human-powered search engine ChaCha launched in late 2006 to somewhat mixed reviews. It sought to entice users to search with expert guides in real time via IM chat windows. It also offered algorithmic search but the human-guided search was the hook. The concept was great but the practical experience was often uneven.
In January ChaCha released “TextChaCha,” an SMS service that offered the same guided search but in mobile. Today the company has released ChaCha Mobile Answers (1-800-2ChaCha) that offers a voice front end — making it like mobile 411 only much broader.
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