Comments on: ChaCha Dances with Mobile Search

By: Mike Guccione

Mike Guccione — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 22:48:17 +0000

I have to admit that I was skeptical at first with their idea, too (We recently reviewed their service, too - http://wapswap.com/blog/) Once you actually start using their service, not only does it beat fumbling around on the web (even on a regular PC), it’s quite addicting. At dinner the other nite we were playing Try-To-Stump-The-ChaCha-Guide, it was quite amusing.

Of course, the bottom line is money, and I am curious as to how much their subscription service will cost once it is out of beta.

By: Keith

Keith — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 02:09:33 +0000

Another over-funded, soon-to-be failure that never visited ECON 101.

1) Scalability. How the hell will this ever scale to being something that meaningfully fields thousands of queries each minute?

2) PROFITABILITY. Where’s the money??????? They’re obviously bleeding cash now, because a business model is non-existent. If the pie-in-the-sky anticipation is that they’ll eventually monetize this via user subscriptions (which is presumably adequate to support the massive overhead), they’re smoking something that I am in desperate need of.

By: Holly

Holly — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 03:23:23 +0000

RE: ” effective searching often involves orienteering”

According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary the definition of “orienteering” is:

Main Entry: ori·en·teer·ing
Pronunciation: ˌȯr-ē-ən-ˈtir-iŋ, -ˌen-
Function: noun
Etymology: modification of Swedish orientering, from orientera to orient
Date: 1948
a cross-country race in which each participant uses a map and compass to navigate between checkpoints along an unfamiliar course

See: http://www.orienteering.org/

By: Boggle

Boggle — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 20:21:34 +0000

There’s already a service like this with a much better community element to it called Mosio. Same idea, but seems more fun (you can see what other people’s questions and answers are).

@spandana- i think chacha could work but they’d better get ready to burn through those millions on $5/hr college students to be truly scalable.

By: spandana

spandana — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 19:21:17 +0000

how could this scales to millions (if not billions) of queries a day? unless, of course, the strategy is to build the knowledge base of the top questions while answering the queries manually, and then build out a robot to answer the ‘head’ queries reliably. (what ask was trying to do when it was askjeeves).

By: Tom Callahan

Tom Callahan — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 15:51:29 +0000

Parul: I believe you missed the point of the PR and the article mentioned above…. The intent of the service is not to put in a search request, but to put in a question and receive the precise answer…. Granted, the web browsing experience on mobile devices will improve exponentially over the coming months and years, but you’d still need to perform a search and filter all the information you receive in response… I think the true power of this service is quickly obtaining THE precise information you need without the task of performing a search yourself….

By: Parul Bindra

Parul Bindra — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 12:33:24 +0000

Lets say the idea takes off because of their ease of use. One can text in any question, from a directory-style inquiry to ones seeking information, rather than scrolling through mobile web pages on a tiny screen.

But the big question of course, is what happens to them when the mobile web browsing experience improves? I don’t mind getting paid for my searches, but I certainly don’t want to pay for my searches. This company won’t last long I guess.

Parul
http://www.bhopu.com

By: Richard

Richard — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 11:24:21 +0000

Thanks for the interesting info. It sure beats browsing around. Press this press that. One question text, immediate answer in minutes. Thanks for this info.