Live Reference on the Cheap? ChaCha.com Offers Surfer Assistance

-- Library Journal, 09/12/2006

A new web site, ChaCha.com, is undergoing public testing, and seems a commercial version of live online reference, albeit with guides paid a pittance. Developer Scott Jones helped develop voice mail via his first company, Boston Technology. Jones told the San Francisco Chronicle that ChaCha.com will have about 3,000 guides when the product launches—including college students, retirees, and stay-at-home parents. While most will earn $5 to $10 an hour, some may get twice that. The guides are also organizing search results on popular terms, so as to offer a menu of relevant results. The site relies on advertising support. "ChaCha will not rise up and supplant market leaders any time soon. Yet if the site can recruit enough guides and make the live search experience fast and effective it will gain adoption," wrote Greg Sterling on Search Engine Watch.