ChaCha (search engine)

ChaCha is a search engine which specializes in a question answering service that uses a technique known as the human search engine. ChaCha was created by Scott A. Jones and Brad Bostic. The company is based in Carmel, Indiana, a suburb of Indianapolis, United States.

The name ChaCha comes from the Mandarin Chinese word, cha traditional Chinese: , which means "to search." [2]

The alpha version of the ChaCha was launched on September 1, 2006. A beta version was introduced on November 6, 2006.[3]  ChaCha said 20,000 guides had registered by year end and that it had raised US$6 million in development funds, including support from Bezos Expeditions, a personal investment firm owned by Jeff Bezos, the entrepreneur behind Amazon.com.[4]  By January 2008 AP reported that ChaCha had 5,000 freelance guides with no less than 500 working at any one time.[5]  Washington Post partner mogonews.com reported that ChaCha's first round of equity financing was actually US$14 million plus a US$2 million grant from 21st Century Technology Fund.[6]  ChaCha announced on March 17, 2009[7]  a new round of equity financing totaling US$12 million[8]  while also laying off 25 employees and a 10 percent reduction in the remaining 56 salaries.[1][9]

In July 2010, ChaCha Inc. was recognized as one of the “2010 Hottest Companies in the Midwest” by Lead411.[10]

ChaCha has experienced significant growth since it was launched in September 2006. The site is currently[when?]  verified to have broken 17 million unique visitors according to Quantcast, making it approximately the 68th largest site in the United States. ChaCha answered 900 million questions by the end of October 2010 – and expects to cross the 1 billion mark in December 2010.[citation needed]

ChaCha had originally been founded with the intention to offer human-guided search from within a web browser and for the search engine to learn from the results provided by their independent contractors.[11]  The system offered a chat on the left side of the page where users could chat with the guides and conclude their search.[11]  The center of the page contained the results that a guide could add or remove (later users could also add or remove these results). The right side of the page contained ads that were relevant to the search.[12]

Desktop search was phased out in April 2008 in favor of mobile products.[13]

In January 2008 ChaCha launched a new SMS that allowed users to ask questions and receive answers via text messaging.[14]  A plain sentence question will get an answer along with a link to a short URL that takes users to a page that contains source information along with the guide's name. Users would text to 242-242 and guides would answer.[15]

During ChaCha's initial start up in 2008, Google controlled 100% of the total market for text-based mobile searching. According to a Nielson Mobile Report, in the third quarter of 2009, ChaCha's text-messaging service surpassed Google in text messaging traffic.

ChaCha launched its beta version of a call-in search service on April 1, 2008, while discontinuing its less effective guided web search.[13]  Users call a toll-free number, and their questions are answered by a human via SMS messaging.

In July 2008, ChaCha launched its first mobile marketing campaign with Coca-Cola  to promote its My Coke Rewards program to users interested in NASCAR  racing.[16]  Fox News reported that ChaCha planned by mid 2008 to charge $5–$10 per month once 10 queries was exceeded[17]  (as of July 26, 2010 no additional fees have been implemented).[18]

In November, 2008, ChaCha launched its SMS Advertising Platform at ad:tech New York.[19][20]

In March 2009, ChaCha reported 30 million "impressions per month" and "3.6 million users" since January 2008.[21][22] An ESPN article stated that ChaCha gets about 1,000,000 questions each day according to their tipsheets.[23] A former Yahoo executive opened a New York office for ChaCha in hopes of increasing advertising.[1][24]

ChaCha uses independent contractors called Guides.[25]  There are four main types of guides: Expeditors, Generalists, Specialists and Transcribers.[26]  Expeditors categorize questions, convert them into standard form, provide direct responses for certain question types, and also make sure that an answer doesn't already exist for that question.[27]  The purposes of a Generalist, "the original and basic ChaCha Guide role," are to: determine what the customer's question is, find an answer to the question using the internet, format the answer into a text message, and add "magic" to the answer which gives it a human quality.[28]  Specialists are a more selective group of guides. They have all of the same purposes as a Generalist but they sign up for specific categories of questions based on their interest in and knowledge of those categories.[29]  The duty of Transcribers is to listen to questions recorded by customers who call into 1-800-2ChaCha then convert the recorded message into text form so that Generalists and Specialists can answer them.[30]

Guides are paid on a per-query basis, with those hired after December 1, 2009, and those who were hired before that date that decide to work in the Points mode, work exclusively for "points" for each search or task they complete. These points are converted to cash on the second business day of each month, which is determined by the Tier those Guides as a whole. Tiers are based upon the amount of queries the Guides complete.[31] The pool for December 2009 was $50,000.[32] This was increased to $75,000 in January 2010,[33] $100,000 in February,[34] and $125,000 in March.[35] Expediters and Transcribers earn 2 points per completed session,[36] while Generalist/Specialist Guides earn 8.[37] These points are currently estimated to be worth about half a cent each, meaning that Generalists and Specialists can expect to make about $0.04 for each question answered, while Expediters and Transcribers earn $0.01 for every two questions answered.[38] Those hired before December 1, 2009 have the option to work for cash ($0.02 per session for Expediters, $0.03 per session for Transcribers, and $0.10 to $0.20 per session for Generalist/Specialist Guides) in "traditional mode," or for points.