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Wow. ChaCha Is Raising Another $30 Million
- ia 18y agoi know this has been discussed ad nauseam, but when will "they" learn that forcing a user to create an account is a bad idea? i was intrigued until i tried to ask chacha a question ("will chacha survive the recession?") and it bogarted my answer with a sign-up screen. that's the first and likely the last time i'll make an attempt to try the service.
- lrm242 18y agoSeconded. They lost me at the login screen. Bailout bailout!
- mdasen 18y agoChaCha is mostly for use by mobile phones - it's kinda a "will you google this for me and get me the answer" service when you aren't at a computer, but can send a text message. In that case, it doesn't require any signup and can be useful enough.
- mdasen 18y agoThis is one of those services where you have to ask: what's the business model? Basically, ChaCha is providing a free service where users can text message questions to them and they pay other people to do searches to get the answer. So, how do they make money? In a decade, we might all have phones good enough to google things for ourselves (rather than texting someone else to do it for us). I can't see why an iPhone or other smartphone user would text a question rather than getting an answer themselves. Their plan seems to be building their network into a quasi-SPAM like environment where some questions get paid-for answers: "your advertisement will be integrated naturally into the answers users receive". Maybe they mean that in addition to "organic" answers (appended to the end), but SMS only carries 160 characters so that's a tight squeeze. It's a cool service and great for settling fun bets with your friends or finding information when on the go. However, I guess I don't see how it will become viable especially as more and more people move to smart devices that they could google things on themselves just as easily as asking someone else by text message.