Social Search Engines: An Inside Look with ChaCha

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Social searching is a relatively new idea that gives search engines a special twist. While many search engines will constantly spew out irrelevant information, spam links, and other unwanted results, social searching aims to remove this problem. The idea behind social searching is that instead of a machine automatically finding and displaying results that it thinks are relevant, a human guide separates nonsense results from real results and you see only the results deemed most relevant to your query. A live chat with the guide allows you to specify your search without having to know special syntaxes and keywords that a computer understands.

In this article, I've taken an inside look from ChaCha, a promising new social search engine. With a growing amount of guides every day, the ChaCha search engine provides users with a new way to get online information. This article documents my first visit to ChaCha: researching social search engines. My research has led me to an unintentional interview with a ChaCha guide.

The overall ChaCha experience is quite amazing. The guide assigned to my query provided me with four related links (and asked if I'd like more). One proved to be irrelevant, but it didn't make a difference in this case. Why? Speaking to the guide through an online instant messaging interface, I was provided with information about social searching, more specifically ChaCha, that no search results could ever provide. I can say that I am throughly satisfied with ChaCha.

Read more on the comments page for the full chat with YvonneD, my guide, and the four links provided.

Quote -

Status: Looking for a guide ...
Status: Connected to guide: YvonneD
YvonneD: Welcome to ChaCha!
YvonneD: Hi there. I will be helping with your search.
You: Hello!
YvonneD: Are you looking for some social search engines?
You: Kind of.
YvonneD: Can you tell me exactly what it is I can help you with?
You: Sure! I'm looking for information on social search engines.
YvonneD: Allright let me take a look for you one moment while I get those results.
You: Thanks.
YvonneD: your welcome please take a look at this first link while I find some more.
You: Ok.
YvonneD: Are these results sufficient?
You: For now, yes. According to the first result, ChaCha itself is a social search engine?
YvonneD: Yes it is
YvonneD: Is there anything else on this topic I can find for you today?
You: Can I ask you more about it? I think you'd know better than the results would

YvonneD: sure
YvonneD: How can I answer your questions on chacha?
You: So if I search \"with a guide\", I have a real person (you) talking to me and helping me find relevant results?
YvonneD: correct
You: Do you use the ChaCha unguided search to find the results? Or do you use other search engines as well?
YvonneD: chacha's search engine mostly but sometimes it requires us t ouse others depending on the search topic
You: I see. How many guides are there working in the back?
YvonneD: You know we are getting more and more new guides everyday I'm not quite sure how many total we have now
You: Do you guide more than one query at a time?
YvonneD: no
YvonneD: only one at a time
YvonneD: also I train other guides as well
You: So then what happens if there aren't enough guides for all the queries? Are people placed in a \"waiting list\" and need to wait longer?
YvonneD: no each guide has up to 9+ words as topics they can search on
You: What do you mean?
YvonneD: so there is always going to be a guide to help somebody
YvonneD: well
YvonneD: for instance one of my search topics is computer internet
YvonneD: another is cats,dvd's.drawing animation.etc.
You: I see. This is really quite an amazing service.
YvonneD: we all choose keywords to perform search querys on
You: Within your category?
YvonneD: everyone chooses different
YvonneD: right you have to do a search on one of your words only
YvonneD: not somebody elses
You: Ok. Are there plans to expand ChaCha into different languages, do you know?
YvonneD: so far there is no mention on that but chacha is growing bigger and better everyday so perhaps that will be in it's future
You: Interesting! Well, I've got to go. Thanks for helping me, but I have one last question:
YvonneD: sure
You: I think this information could be very useful for others who would like to know more about social searching. Is it ok if I post this chat conversation?
You: and the links you gave me?
YvonneD: I don't mind plus maybe the more people know about chacha the better
You: Alright

Thanks again!
YvonneD: your welcome
YvonneD: goodnight
You: Good night.
YvonneD: Thanks for using ChaCha! I hope you had a great search experience!
YvonneD: Please RATE ME. Thanks for using ChaCha.
Status: Session ended.

#1 XerXis on 12 Dec 2006 - 13:07

is it the first of april already?

(1 reply) #2 Fubar on 12 Dec 2006 - 13:20

so let me get this right , some guy ake Guide does the searching for you ? isnt that just a tad lazy , i mean whats wrong with using google :s im confused a little :s suerly it would be quicker to use google infact it is quicker to use google rather than sitting there having a half arsed convo with some guide whos doing the work for you :s im really confused as to who said hey you know what chacha is a really good business module :s

#2.1 Jugalator on 12 Dec 2006 - 22:10

I guess it's kind of for "mum and dad" or if you're just feeling lazy and want someone reasonably experienced search for something hard to find while you do something else. :p As I understood it, it's a free service so I don't quite see a problem either.

(7 replies) #3 Quick Reply on 12 Dec 2006 - 13:45

I don't understand how practical it would be to scale, or why anyone would devote their time to become a guide. If they are manually searching other engines anyway, how is it different from meta-searching (ie: Dogpile) aside form the manual labour?

#3.1 chewy on 12 Dec 2006 - 13:50

Quote - Quick Reply said @ #3

i am a guide,they pay you about $5 an hour

#3.2 Fubar on 12 Dec 2006 - 14:03

Quote - chewy said @ #3.1

i got news for you my irc chat bot does it for free

[14:02:20] <Fub4r> .g social search engines
[14:02:22] <&Alice> 38,500,000 results
[14:02:23] <&Alice> Eurekster Launches Personalized Social @ http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3301481
[14:02:23] <&Alice> USATODAY.com - 'Social' search engine @ http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-07-...h-engines_x.htm
[14:02:25] <&Alice> Start-up launches social search engine @ http://news.com.com/2100-1038-5144567.html

and it works 24/7 infact it also has many other search functions too like wiki search video search and many more , eggdrop ftw

Last edited by Fubar on 12 Dec 2006 - 14:12

#3.3 chewy on 12 Dec 2006 - 14:10

Quote - Fubar said @ #3.2

realistically, most people who would use chacha would NEVER use irc

#3.4 Fubar on 12 Dec 2006 - 14:13

Quote - chewy said @ #3.3

how do you know that ? :p

#3.5 chewy on 12 Dec 2006 - 14:16

Quote - Fubar said @ #3.4

obviously i dont

but the vast majority of people dont use irc(non tech people anyway) and you probably figure the tech people will just search for themselves. i have used chacha a few times personally, one to get a conversion for a package of yeast and i dont remember the other. to be honest i would still stick with google most of the time but they are helpful

#3.6 Fubar on 12 Dec 2006 - 14:20

suppose sop , i just find it a very odd business module myself lol wonder what search engine they use , google ? lol

#3.7 chewy on 12 Dec 2006 - 14:25

Quote - Fubar said @ #3.6

they have their own search engine, that is part of it when a guide finds results for you query the results are added to the keywords entered so the next time someone searches for that item a real human has found results

(2 replies) #4 mattm591 on 12 Dec 2006 - 14:00

I've used this site. Mainly only to ask stupid questions because it is rather amusing hearing their responses.

Personally I don't see how a service like this could last long. There are so many possibilities for failure here.

#4.1 XP-RTM on 12 Dec 2006 - 16:59

actually i think its a pretty cool idea

#4.2 leeveson on 12 Dec 2006 - 17:11

I bet some of those social search engine guides have hard time. Imagine their response when someone asks them to look up "gay animal old people porn". Would you look something like that up for 5$/h? I know I wouldn't.

#5 Jack31081 on 12 Dec 2006 - 17:16

So instead of searching the internet yourself, you basically have to convey what you want to some faceless 'guide', who then goes and does the searching for you, returning to you only the links he's deemed appropriate via the information you gave him.

Oh yeah, that's a wonderful idea. Sweet zombie jesus.

(1 reply) #6 +nezermundy on 12 Dec 2006 - 17:42

I have used it, it found me sperm donations in the UK.

#6.1 Helba on 12 Dec 2006 - 19:02

Hahahaha...

Riotous.

#7 Cyranthus on 12 Dec 2006 - 17:47

yeah, this has been out for a while, but its good that its getting more recognition

#8 gadean on 12 Dec 2006 - 18:16

It's not too bad, actually... that is, if your guide isn't lazy and knowledgeable about the subject. I like it, esp when my question is difficult to search for but easily asked.

ChaCha has potential. I just wish they changed their logo so it didn't look like Coca-Cola.

#9 BigBoy on 12 Dec 2006 - 18:58

Hmmm or - how to use 10 minutes on a search that would usually take 2 minutes. Sounds really promising to me...

#10 Helba on 12 Dec 2006 - 19:01

We were just "using" ChaCha the other night...

Honestly, I didn't know that anyone in the world used it for SERIOUS searches.

Hehehe.

#11 rev3nant on 12 Dec 2006 - 21:27

My friend uses the word "cha-cha" when he means something crappy

#12 Jugalator on 12 Dec 2006 - 22:12

Don't miss Something Awful's coverage on this service.

http://www.<< filtered for offensive content >>/index.php?a=4291

edit: ah well, you probably know what the "offensive content" is.. If not, ask a ChaCha dude for a link to Something Awful.

(1 reply) #13 backdrifter on 12 Dec 2006 - 22:38

I think the whole thing is promising. I just made a couple of tries and the best thing is a real human being can filter out crap and spam results you would get with a generic google search. Better yet you can talk with the guide to narrow down your results. The guides seems to be chosen according to the search you made, so you have a chance to search with a guide who understands from the topic you're looking in.

A few problems though, about %70 of the guides don't respond after search so you'll have to ask for a new guide until you get one. And there seems to be no way to report a non-responding guide. But worse part is that beast media player opens next to your results, showing nothing but still continuosly eating up bandwidth. I seriously hope they replace it with some less aggresive advertisement.

#13.1 t3h1b406 on 13 Dec 2006 - 04:41

Quote - backdrifter said @ #13

Well, according to the interview the guides pick the search terms they want to answer, as long as it's in their category.

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