Chacha - from a global user’s perspective

Chacha has been around for almost a year now and it is already a Webware 100 winner. For those who are new to Chacha, it is a search engine where you can chat live with human guides who will help you get relevant search results. The Chacha guides are supposed to be those who are skilled at searching online information and who are knowledgeable on the subject that you search for. Chacha describes itself as ’the ultimate fusion of computer technology and human intelligence’.

Now over my recent chats with Chacha guides and some blogosphere searches, I came to realise many interesting facts. Much has been discussed about this service already. While some praise the service, others are full of brickbats.There have been testimonials of someone recollecting how helpful a Chacha guide was in helping him get proper medical help when he was having a back pain.  Chacha guides also recollect how they have help certain users in getting their searches right for over 15 minutes when they are paid to search for only 6 minutes per query/user. Then there have been counterpoints saying that one Chacha guide didn’t even know what Digg was.

The Guides system - how it works

According to the guides, there are around 40,000 Chacha guides in the US who are paid around USD 10-15 per search hour. Anybody who is skilled at online search with good knowledge about particular subjects can apply to become Chacha guides. Upon admission, they are given a software that they can install on their home computers. This software helps them access the Chacha database of sites that they can use to search for information to answer queries of Chacha users.  The amount of time they spend searching through the Chacha database is monitored and counted and they get paid according to that. They can also refer their friends to become guides and can get referral commission out of that, just like the Amway chain.

User searches - how relevant are the search results

I did a couple of searches like ‘best chicken tikka masala in New York’ and the guides showed me a site which lists the top 10 Indian restaurants in New York. Not bad. Then I did a search for the ‘Best PR agency in India’ and it showed me the link to some PR agency that I didn’t think was the best answer.

I searched for terms like blogging hacks, which the guide asked me to define what is a hack. When I did and requested for a peekaboo post hack, he couldn’t find one. My friend did a search on my name and she got transferred to a page that said ‘ you are shown this page because you have used abusive content’ or something like that. Since when has my name become an abusive term?!

One guide told me that search queries are transferred to agents randomly. Ow! That is bad. I was hoping that Chacha would have some intelligent software solution like an intelligent call center ACD that can transfer specific queries to specific guides based on search terms and skills sets of the guides.

So if I get hooked to a smart guide, I’m lucky. Otherwise I can get frustrated explaining to the guide what I am trying to search for.

Another concern is local relevancy. Since all the guides are in US, how familiar will they be with certain searches and keywords of other countries? Say what if I want to know something like the best Manipuri resources or dishes on the Net? Not every best sites come out top of Google, but I might know of certain regional sites that has tons of information on that topic.  

Why would I search in Chacha

One question I often wonder is why should I search in Chacha - the Chacha guides takes times to search for results on their end. Why cant I just Google it? Maybe those who use Chacha are those who don’t know much about Internet searches or who are plain lazy.  Other than that, why would somebody search on Chacha? Maybe someone who has searched what he could on Google and still has not found what he was looking for.

Looking from this angle, maybe then most of the searches that comes to Chacha will be advanced searches - not ones that can be done easily on Google. So we might need specialised guides - who are skilled in certain areas. So if I want to search for something on blogging, may I should be given the option to choose or get connected to a guide who knows pretty much on blogging and knows various sites about blogging. For instance, if I become a Chacha guide, I might be able to search quickly and provide information on social media or PR related queries.

Now when users are looking for advanced answers, they might not necessarily be looking for answers rightaway. Maybe they can wait for sometime- say a day. So instead of just searching through the data base that moment, Chacha can give an additional option wherein users can send questions to Chacha on the email. This question can be circulated among Chacha guides who are good in that particular subject and their answers can be sent back to the searcher.

Chacha also need to internationalise its system. By this , I mean hire guides from out side the US. Maybe a chacha.co.in for India. This will help search more relevant local information rather than searching everything from US. Also, employment opportunities for many.

Overall, it is a good service - and many people like it apparently. Nice and unique idea. Only that I need to ask myself now - can I rely on Chacha everytime I need an answer that Google cant provide?

By the way, Chacha also has a offshoot called ChaCha Results - directory of quality results of searches done on Chacha. This is one site where webmasters would like to get their sites added to.

This entry was posted on June 24th, 2007 and is filed under search engines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.