EightBlack.

A new search engine - ChaCha has just launched and is jumping up and down about the fact that it provides “personal powered search”.

Apparently, the live human on the other end will push even more targeted results to you than Google.

I don’t know. My initial reaction is that a lot of what I search for is between me and Google and I’m not really that comfortable that they know everything I look for. This goes back to the argument around the whole “database of intentions”, but let’s leave that for another time.

Anyway, back to ChaCha.

I’m presently waiting for a plane in Chicago. It’s taken me the whole day to traverse 3 states. The whole travelling thing internally in the US has gotten so bad that only the most determined keep doing it.

Anyway, my journey started out in “de-friggin-troit” at 10am this morning. It’s now 4pm and due to weather, I missed my connecting flight and am waiting for a connection, like everyone else.

I was reading about ChaCha and I thought, why not give them a test. My destination today is Omaha. I typed into the search query box “car rental Omaha Nebraska”.

The autoresponders worked well, which was a good sign.

Then it fell apart as a human became involved.

I don’t know about you, but because of Google’s absolute mission about speed and relevance, we’ve become used to seeing our results displayed within seconds.

With ChaCha, you could put the kettle on, mow the lawn and file your taxes in less time that it takes to get a response.

Here’s the transcript of the real time conversation I had with Stephanie K from ChaCha:

Status: Looking for a guide …
Status: Connected to guide: Stephanie K
Stephanie K: Welcome to ChaCha!
Stephanie K: Hi there. I will be helping with your search.
Stephanie K: Are you looking for car rentals in omaha nebraska?
You: yes
You: for 5 days
Stephanie K: ok one moment please!
You: pref SUV
You: hello?
Stephanie K: ok do you have dates I will try to get that for you but sometime it make you do it!
Stephanie K: sorry pop ups coming right and left
You: from today until Sat this week
Stephanie K: going to were?
Stephanie K: Thanks for being patient! Rest assured I’m finding the most relevant results for your search.

I couldn’t help but laugh. I was picturing some sweat shop of a call centre somewhere in the middle of Uzbekistan, with the operator tearing her hair out because she couldn’t stop the pop ups!

And the time it was taking. I kid you not. It was painfully slow.

Google have trained us to expect immediacy on the web. Poor ChaCha delivers steam powered results. It might be ok for people looking for a very narrow subject, but I just don’t see it getting off the ground.

Read the full story here, courtesy The Age.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 12th, 2006 at 9:07 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.