Aunt Bee Would Like ChaCha

I had to share this recent article. Although ChaCha is much more than a modern-day Mayberry operator (we are precisely routing questions to the optimal guide and answer delivery is facilitated in a sophisticated, scalable manner) it is great to see these real-life experiences relayed by people who are objectively evaluating the value of mobile answers from ChaCha. This writer would have saved more than an hour finding a digital camera by starting with ChaCha... Let me know what you think of this writer's take...

The Free Lance-Star - Fredericksburg,VA,USA

ONE MIGHT expect ChaCha, the new cell phone search engine powered by actual flesh-and-blood human beings, to be as slow as a choo-choo chugging up a hill. ...

ONE MIGHT expect ChaCha, the new cell phone search engine powered by actual flesh-and-blood human beings, to be as slow as a choo-choo chugging up a hill.

It's essentially a cyber- version of the Mayberry telephone operator Andy and Barney used to call up whenever they wanted to know if the diner had a special on meatloaf.
(You can actually do that with ChaCha, by the way.)

Users call, text or e-mail a real, live human being with a question and he or she quickly and carefully researches it for you, delivering a snippet of personalized advice along with the single best Web site link to your mobile phone.

The service works on any cell phone, and it's surprisingly fast--usually delivering results in a few minutes. It's also uncannily on the nose in terms of personal advice.

My cynical editor suggested that ChaCha might be pulling a fast one on us, delivering what advertisers pay it to tell us.

So I put the service to a tough test.

I spent over an hour on the Web, trying to figure out what the best digital camera would be as a gift for my 7-year-old son's birthday.

Robbie's grandmother had asked me to do this. She then turned her nose up at a few possibilities I came up with. Finally, we agreed that one looked like a good choice.

I put ChaCha to a real test by texting "What's the best digital camera for kids?"

And I posed this question at 12:15 a.m., believing I wouldn't get an answer till the next morning.

A short time later, I had my answer.

And, like some kind of magic card trick, it was the same Fisher-Price camera Robbie's grandmother and I liked after more than an hour's painstaking research.

Ask ChaCha where the cheapest gas is. Ask it where you can get the best bowl of clam chowder in town. Ask it what the weather will be like.
Aside from the human touch factor and the fact that there's dependable personal advice involved, ChaCha is special because users don't have to sift through link after link on tiny cell phone screens.

Indianapolis-based Cha-Cha recently won out over 100 other mobile software developers at the third annual Fast Pitch contest held at the annual CTIA wireless show in Las Vegas. Indianapolis-based ChaCha, won the $25,000 first prize.

ChaCha also has gotten a promotion deal on AT&T's wireless portal MEdiaNet, providing exposure to more than 70 million customers.
Andy and Barney would like it.

For more information, go to chacha.com

ChaCha Selected as Best New Mobile Service by AT&T at CTIA

Yesterday was a big day for ChaCha at CTIA. Thanks to some outstanding work by the ChaCha team, we were selected by AT&T as the best new consumer mobile product in their fast-pitch competition. What does this mean?

We received $25,000 in prize money (giant "Happy Gilmore" style check being held by Kevin Mazzatta, VP of Biz Dev at ChaCha) and, much more importantly, we will be working with AT&T to introduce ChaCha to their customer base (about 70M folks). What a great way to kick-off the second quarter!

To win, ChaCha competed with hundreds of companies from around the world that applied. Only 66 were selected to present to the judges at CTIA and ChaCha was selected as the winner.

The Fast-Pitch program is considered the wireless industry’s equivalent of American Idol, with emerging mobile technology companies presenting their wireless applications directly to AT&T’s decision makers. Hundreds of companies applied from around the world and were judged based on the following criteria:

1. Originality / Innovation

2. Market appeal

3. Interface design

4. Number of platforms and handsets supported

This news will hit the wire tomorrow but I wanted to get the word out here. Let me know if you have any questions and I will do my best to answer them! We are still working with AT&T to define the rollout plan but I will keep updating here as things progress.

Headed to CTIA Las Vegas

I made onto my Southwest airlines 737 this morning and will be departing to Las Vegas for CTIA shortly. This is my first trip out to this conference and I suspect it will be massive and loud -- full of new product announcements that both excite and under-whelm the attendees.

I am accompanied at CTIA by our (ChaCha's) head of business development Jay Highley and Kevin Mazzatta and Darin Leach who are also on the biz dev team.

We have a major announcement regarding ChaCha's mobile answers service coming tomorrow so please check back here to learn more!

Doors are closing - time to sign off.

ChaCha at SXSW - Mobile Answers Big Hit

The ChaCha marketing team (including me) made a trip down to SXSW in Austin, TX last week. It was an exciting, eventful trip and the ChaCha team did a great job getting the word out about our service. We also met a lot of cool bands, fans, industry folks, and SXSW full-timers. Thousands of new users started texting 242242 (ChaCha) to get answers about when bands were playing, where the big parties were, and what the status of their flights back home were.

We partnered with Spin Magazine, iHeartComix, and PureVolume. The highlight was when one of our folks hung out with Vampire Weekend backstage. They loved ChaCha's text answers service and thought it would be extremely valuable to them while on the road. I had a great time talking to Tommie Sunshine, a 20-year veteran of the DJ and remix scene. Tommie thought ChaCha rocked!

Justin shot a few videos that you can checkout - SXSW part 1; SXSW part 2; SXSW part 3.

Next up for ChaCha marketing, partnerships with some major sports franchises - more to come!

Mobile Advertising "Uncharted Territory"

In Barcelona at the recent mobile industry summit mobile advertising was discussed. Many points were raised regarding the applicability of current online ad models in a mobile environment.

"Advertising is not just a straight move from the PC to the mobile phone," Marco Boerries, head of Yahoo's mobile business, said in a keynote speech at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

"We're trying to invent mobile advertising."

Mobile ad revenue estimates over the next four years range broadly - but all believe that the value of this market will be in the billions annually.

For mobile search, ChaCha's team is working to pioneer new models for mobile advertising that will deliver enhanced value to users. That's all I will mention on that... but expect more on that front from ChaCha in the coming months.

Alt Search Engines Names ChaCha Text Answers #1

Alternative Search Engines, by Charles Knight, has named ChaCha's text answers service the number one alternative search engine for February. It is great to see the leading authority on alternative search engines has again chosen ChaCha atop such an innovative group of companies.

ChaCha Mobile Answers Save Lives :-)

I have been blogging about the great experiences ChaCha mobile answers users have been getting with texting their questions to 242242. A particularly good example of this was recently posted by Jesse Stay on his blog.

Then I remembered Cha Cha had a “Human Powered” search engine. I sent a question to “242242″ (CHACHA on your cell phone) via text message on my iPhone asking why my brother was at a standstill. Within just a couple minutes I received a response saying they were cleaning up after near white-out conditions, and to wait out until they cleared up the roads. A link was attached, which also told me there were several accidents ahead and the road was closed (I love my iPhone’s browser!). I quickly called my brother and told him the details so he could decide to find the nearest hotel and wait it out.

ChaCha definitely delivered in this case as it is in thousands of cases every day! If you want to see the full post click here.

Brad, 'er, Brian, 'er Brad What's this ChaCha Search Thingy?

Every day I learn about a lot of new things - which is one of the reasons that I love building technology companies - especially a fast-growing mobile search company in ChaCha. In the past week, I learned that Fox has yet another new cable TV channel called Fox Business. I then learned that I was going to be on the Fox Business channel live to talk about ChaCha, which I did yesterday.

While on the show, I learned that my name can actully be used interchangeably with "Brian". I also learned that, with only a few minutes to explain how ChaCha's mobile text answer service 242242 can allow you to get an answer to any question on your mobile phone, it was not worth the effort and time required to tell the host that my name is Brad...

We certainly appreciate the coverage from Fox - I suppose they can call me whatever they want as long as they keep talking about ChaCha!

ChaCha (242242) Mobile Answers via Text Continue to Build Momentum

ChaCha focused tremendous energy on its launch event at the Sundance Film Festival and I am excited to report that the momentum gathered with thousands of festival goers has continued to build post-Festival. I will be sharing more details soon, but thought I would share this story from CNet by Michelle Meyers. We had a great discussion while I was still at the Festival.

Check out the story here.

ChaCha's Mobile Text Answers are a Hit at Sundance!

ChaCha's mobile text service (2-4-2-2-4-2 = "ChaCha") is a hit with the crowd at the Sundance Film Festival where it is "The Official Text Answers Service". We have really been blown away by the popularity of the service among all festival goers ranging from teenagers gawking at celebrities to the celebrities themselves. The ChaCha team has regularly been stopped by people on the streets who want to convey just how much they love our new text answers product.

I had the opportunity to be at Sundance from the opening Thursday through Sunday (and will return this Friday for the closing weekend) and experience the buzz that ChaCha has created first-hand. One of the biggest fans of ChaCha that I encountered was Quentin Tarantino. Above he is pictured with me and a group of mutual friends we had made at Sundance in the Stella Artois VIP room. He left wearing a ChaCha Beanie and with a ChaCha eGrip on his phone (Sticker with ChaCha logo that keeps phone from sliding off your dashboard).

All-in-all ChaCha's mobile text answers launch is really going well. Please let me know if you have seen us at Sundance or if you have any feedback regarding the service!

ChaCha Debuts Mobile Text (242242) Answers

You might notice that the name of my blog has changed! It is subtle, but what was "Brad Bostic's Human Powered Search Blog" is now "Brad Bostic's Mobile Search and Technology Blog". The reason for the change? We finally launched our first mobile product at ChaCha!

After a year of tirelessly building and optimizing our online community of roughly 30,000 ChaCha Guides (real people with expertise in providing online answers to your specific question) and making real-time answers available online, we announced our new text service on January 3rd. The response has been tremendous!

When you get a chance please text your question to ChaCha at 242242. It's easy - Just create a new text message, enter 242242 as the number you are sending the text to, type your question, and send it off! ChaCha will respond with the answer (usually in a couple minutes but difficulty of question will impact the speed of your response).

I want to know what you are asking and how you like the service! Please give it a try and please POST A COMMENT WITH WHAT YOU ASKED AND HOW IT WENT.

Having ChaCha answers available via text has been absolutely amazing for me. I look forward to hearing how you like it.

Google Announces (are you ready?) GPhone is a Media Fabrication

Aided by creative media types, Google has officially claimed the post (from itself - although Apple is a close second) of the most amazing hype generator in the history of the world. For months, everyone from Wall Street professionals to kindergartners have been anticipating Google's answer to the iPhone - what the media has reffered to as the almighty GPhone.

Finally, on November 6, 2007 the big announcement was here. Like kids on Christmas we all ran to open our news feeds to see the bright, shiny phone of our dreams. Anticipation was building as we scrolled through the various headlines to find what we had all been waiting for...

And there it was - "Google has officially announced that is is launching (drum roll please)............

AN OPEN SOURCE PROJECT!"

So now it is known. Google's much-anticipated GPhone is actually an open source operating system project meant to make it much easier for Google (and other developers) to get all of its applications that work on the web to work on phones. If that doesn't get you excited, I don't know what will.

The SDK (software developer's kit) will be available to developers on November 12, 2007 so that corporations and coding cowboys alike can start writing applications that will run on Android.

Here is a fun little video of the primary engineers behind Android talking about the project.

To the average consumer (to the extend an average consumer was paying attention), this announcement is probably a bit underwhelming - like expecting a go-cart for Christmas and getting an engine kit under the tree and hoping with a lot of work you can drive around by the second half of 2008 instead.

The reality is that this announcement is big and it will definitely change the playing field in the mobile industry. Carriers have long maintained a walled garden where they have control over exactly what does and does not work on their devices. The operating systems and the applications written for them are proprietary so if a software developer wants to write an application for a phone that could be easily downloaded and used by consumers the task is nearly impossible.

Theoretically, an open operating system based on accepted standards could be embraced by carriers so that all developers could write software applications that could be downloaded by all interested cell phone users. This would create a vast new array of opportunities for innovation and would absolutely result in consumers receiving more value over time. In the absence of an open standard, innovation is slowed and progress is stifled.

In reality, Google's project is far from an immediate panacea for the lack of openness and standards in the mobile market. AT&T and Verizon have not signed on as supporters of this project which means that 52% of the mobile market is either doing something different altogether or taking a wait and see approach.

There is no way to predict exactly how this will shake out but I will make the prediction that a hardware device labeled a "GPhone" produced by Google will not be released anytime soon. Such a move would be disruptive to the Open Handset Alliance's charter to get all carriers, handset manufacturers, and software developers to adopt the standard.

In Japan, PC Dying and Gadgets Thriving

"More than 50% of Japanese send email and browse the Internet on their mobile phones."

It seems the days of the masses voyaging in a sheep-like herd to the PC store (or Dell.com) every time a new processor with ever more power is advertised by Intel may be coming to an end. This article offers some recent evidence in Japan of a trend toward utilizing hand held devices rather than PC's to fulfill one's computing requirements. It also indicates that gaming is done on gaming consoles such as the PS3, XBox360, and Wii rather than on gaming PC's.

From a search perspective, I believe this trend has major implications. On mobile devices users do not have the luxury of typing queries and receiving millions (or billions) of potential results. So Google, Yahoo, and the usual search suspects are coming out with their new algorithmic "mobile search" offerings. The problem is that on the mobile phone people want THE ANSWER. They don't want a bunch of links - or even one link.

So I suggest watching this trend - as mobile devices increasingly surpass PC's in popularity for performing everyday information access, the search battle will shift from the desktop to the pocket...