ChaCha adds a voice service
By Dusan Belic on Tuesday, April 1st, 2008 at 9:18 AM PST In Announcements, CTIA Wireless 2008 @ Las Vegas, Services
Right from the floor of CTIA Wireless in Las Vegas, the human powered search engine ChaCha is announcing the voice service. Simply dial 1-800-2-ChaCha (800-224-2242) ask (speak) any question, and get an answer sent to you via SMS. Every SMS capable handset will work, whether it’s a simple feature phone or a powerful smartphone.
In its release, ChaCha is emphasizing you can ask them whatever you want, including such questions as:
- How much sodium is in a McDonald’s Big Mac?
- What hotel in downtown Austin has a business center?
- Who won the last Boston Marathon?
- Where can I get the cheapest gas in Orlando, Florida?
- Who stars in the new movie “21″?
More information is available on ChaCha’s website.
What is the value of a system that doesn’t answer you right away? On the surface this seems like a cool trick, but the real value of mobile search is in real-time agent-assisted applications. The caller gets an instant answer to the query, rather than waiting for an SMS that may be wrong information.