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ChaCha – Human-Human computer-mediated search

This came over the School of Informatics wire this morning: An informatics professor has created a search engine faciliated by human beings.

According to the press release, ChaCha is “the first search engine to instantly connect users with people to produce relevant results.” Co-founded by Scott Jones — an inventor of a voicemail system used by a half billion people — and Brad Bostic, ChaCha is an Alpha version of a search engine that connects users searching for information with live human guides. The idea is that humans would be able to filter for the most relevant search results. These guides — a workforce drawing largely from stay-at-home parents — will earn up to $10 per hour.

A couple reactions …

First, there is this problem:

ChaCha search engine message

That was the message that greeted me when I tried to find a human guide by going to the site. I know this is “Alpha” version, but I would think scalability is going to be a real problem. Can you imagine having to wait for a Google guide everytime you referenced that search engine? Multiply that by the number of users, and what has been developed is a bunch of bottlenecks. I wonder what the acceptable ratio is between guides and users that would make the service worthwhile.

Second, what prompted this? Was it a user survey or some demand by frustrated Googlers? “We wanted to solve the problem search engine users are experiencing with existing services — that is, the massive volume of search results they must sift through online,” said Jones. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I find modern search engines to be incredibly helpful in almost every situation. This isn’t the days of old Alta Vista searches where your ideal page is #521 on the list. So, is this ChaCha really meant to be a secondary market of searches, where you go when you are frustrated trying to find something else? Would a helpful librarian be able to do the same?

Third, there is this tidbit from Inside INdiana Business:

In addition, once a guide reaches a pre-determined experience level, they are allowed to invite other guides to join and can then make 10 percent of the invited guides’ earnings.

I got to the “experience level” part and immediately thought pyramid scheme. Or the completely legal version of the same. Yuck. Or great, if you jump in now.

By Kevin Makice

A Ph.D student in informatics at Indiana University, Kevin is rich in spirit. He wrestles and reads with his kids, does a hilarious Christian Slater imitation and lights up his wife's days. He thinks deeply about many things, including but not limited to basketball, politics, microblogging, parenting, online communities, complex systems and design theory. He didn't, however, think up this profile.