ChaCha was featured today in the Personal Technology section of the Wall Street Journal. In this video, Walt talks about our mobile answers service. How does 1-800-2ChaCha work for you? Post a comment to let me know!
Answers in the palm of your hand, with Walter Mossberg, Wall Street Journal and CNBC's Michelle Caruso Cabrera
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.
We are having a great show at CTIA so far. Please take a look at the following release from ChaCha regarding our 1-800-2ChaCha service (800-224-2242). Let me know what you think once you try it!
Regards,
--Brad
-------------Press Release-----------------------
ChaCha’s Industry Breakthrough Makes Searching Easy
from Mobile Phones
Call 1-800-2-ChaCha. Ask in your own voice. Receive free answers by text.
LAS VEGAS, April 1, 2008 — From the scoop on the hottest martini bar on the Vegas strip to advice on where to buy the cheapest gas in Manhattan, ChaCha’s ingenious new
1-800-2-ChaCha (800-224-2242) mobile answers service allows mobile phone users to ask an extensive range of questions in conversational English while on the go — and the free answers are texted back within minutes.
The online and mobile search company is announcing its free new voice service today at the CTIA Wireless 2008 global convention in
You can ask ChaCha almost anything:
· How much sodium is in a McDonald's Big Mac?
·What hotel in downtown
·Who won the last Boston Marathon?
·Where can I get the cheapest gas in
·Who stars in the new movie “21”?
ChaCha’s valuable new service instantly routes each question to a human guide — dramatically expanding the questions you can ask well beyond simple phone numbers or addresses. The guides utilize powerful tools to search the Web and quickly return a succinct, relevant answer in a text message with a Web reference link.
“On mobile devices, traditional 411 has been the only easy to use option and it is limited to the basics of only finding a phone number or address,” explains ChaCha CEO Scott A. Jones. “More recently, desktop search engines have attempted to enter the mobile market by forcing users to enter a restricted query with their thumbs on a tiny keypad in a specific way, which causes most people to find other ways of meeting their information needs, such as calling a friend or waiting until they get to a computer, or, worse yet, making less-informed decisions. Using ChaCha is like having thousands of informed friends available by phone to help answer your questions 24 hours a day.”
Moreover, ChaCha works on any mobile phone — from simple flip phones to sophisticated smart phones — with no voice recognition prompts or menus to muddle through.
“With our innovative combination of human intelligence and sophisticated technology, ChaCha’s mobile answers service does the work for you,” explains ChaCha President Brad Bostic. “Another groundbreaking feature is that you can easily reply with follow-up questions, as you might do in a conversation, further demonstrating how superior our new service is compared to 411 or algorithmic search engines.”
ChaCha’s new voice capability further expands upon its award-winning text service launched in January of this year. After only two months of deployment, ChaCha demonstrated at the “My Search is Better than Your Search” competition at the Search Engine Strategies conference in
Additionally, ChaCha was ranked as the “No. 1 Alternative Search Engine” in February — beating out hundreds of companies — by Charles Knight of the blogging network, ReadWriteWeb. Last month, out of 70 promising start-ups presenting at Dow Jones’ “Web Ventures”, ChaCha was selected as a “Top Ten” company by VentureWire’s judges.
"ChaCha's new voice capability pushes the boundaries of mobile 411 beyond its historical name and address limitations," says Greg Sterling, principal of Sterling Market Intelligence and the Program Director for Local Mobile Search. "It represents a next step in the evolution of the industry from directory assistance to voice search."
About ChaCha: ChaCha, a mobile answers service, allows users to call 1-800-2-CHA-CHA (800-224-2242) or text questions to CHACHA (242-242) on mobile phones and receive answers within minutes. ChaCha guides — trained and skilled individuals — use ChaCha's powerful internal search tools to respond to any query. Created by serial entrepreneur Scott A. Jones and Brad Bostic, ChaCha is funded by Bezos Expeditions, the personal investment firm of Jeff Bezos; Morton Meyerson, former President and Vice Chairman of EDS and former Chairman and CEO of Perot Systems; Rod Canion, founding CEO of Compaq Computer; and Jack Gill, well-known Silicon Valley venture capitalist. For more information about ChaCha’s newest features, go to http://www.chacha.com/.
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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!
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.
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."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."
In Barcelona at the Mobile World Congress wireless fair Microsoft announced its acquisition of Danger, maker of the Sidekick, calling it critical to winning over key mobile customers to its brand of mobile Internet.
Andy Rubin, who is heading up Google's Android open handset alliance initiative, was co-founder of Danger.
Who do you think will win the mobile handset battle waged by Google and Microsoft?
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.
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.
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 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 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!
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.
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.
"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.
Blaise Cronin recently met with my co-founder at ChaCha, Scott Jones to discuss the advancements we are making in online knowledge sharing. During the discussion, Blaise shared an article written by Oded Nov in the November issue of Communications of the ACM entitled "What Motivates Wikipedians?"
This was of particular interest to me given the great deal of work and research we have done at ChaCha building a scalable online workforce of knowledgeable people who are motivated to help others. The article is focused entirely on the motivations and corresponding contribution levels among those who write and edit articles on Wikipedia.
One extremely important factor that is not addressed at all in the findings is that of the credibility and accuracy of information that is delivered. Wikipedia has been banned in at least one case as a credible source for definitive information which indicates that the investigation into what motivates those who provide user-generated content lacks sufficient depth. To make this data truly meaningful it seems that one must also look into what motivates those who provide accurate contributions to user-generated content projects. For now, let's just focus on the analysis in Oded's article as it is interesting and useful.
Oded asserts that user-generated content is simply another form of volunteering. And, as such, the factors underpinning volunteering activity can help explain why people contribute to Wikipedia. Those factors are fun, ideology, values, understanding, enhancement, protective, career, and social. In looking at the correlation between these factors and user contribution levels, the following key observations were made:
