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ChaCha was an American human-guided
search engine A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...
that provided free, real-time answers to any question, through its website, or by using one of the company's
mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...
s. The company, founded in 2006 by Scott A. Jones and Brad Bostic, was based in
Carmel Carmel may refer to: * Carmel (biblical settlement), an ancient Israelite town in Judea * Mount Carmel, a coastal mountain range in Israel overlooking the Mediterranean Sea * Carmelites, a Roman Catholic mendicant religious order Carmel may also ...
,
Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...
, United States, part of the
Indianapolis Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Marion ...
metropolitan area A metropolitan area or metro is a region that consists of a densely populated urban agglomeration and its surrounding territories sharing industries, commercial areas, transport network, infrastructures and housing. A metro area usually com ...
. Its name comes from the
Mandarin Chinese Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language of ...
word ''cha'' (), which means "to search."


History

An
alpha version A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...
of ChaCha was launched on September 1, 2006. A
beta version A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...
was introduced on November 6, 2006. ChaCha said 20,000 guides had registered by year's end and that it had raised US$6 million in development funds, including support from
Bezos Expeditions Bezos Expeditions is an American investment firm based in Mercer Island, Washington. It serves as a family office for Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos by managing his personal investments. The firm invests in early stage ventures, late stage venture ...
, a personal investment firm owned by
Jeff Bezos Jeffrey Preston Bezos ( ;; and Robinson (2010), p. 7. ''né'' Jorgensen; born January 12, 1964) is an American entrepreneur, media proprietor, investor, and commercial astronaut. He is the founder, executive chairman, and former preside ...
, the
entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...
behind Amazon.com. By January 2008, ChaCha had 5,000 freelance guides with at least 500 working at any one time. MogoNews.com reported that ChaCha's first round of equity financing was $14 million plus a $2 million grant from 21st Century Technology Fund. ChaCha announced on March 17, 2009, a new round of equity financing totaling US$12 million,"ChaCha Secures $12M in Financing, Reduces Staff"
By Andrew Berg WirelessWeek.com – March 18, 2009
while also laying off 25 people and reducing the salaries of the 56 remaining employees by 10 percent. The renewed investment brought total
venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...
to an acknowledged $43 million, though an independent estimate placed it at $58 million. A month later, co-founder Brad Bostic stepped down as company president, saying ChaCha no longer needed him for day-to-day operations. Bostic noted that the company had been struggling for profitability in the current global recession. In August 2011, ChaCha launched its text messaging-based service in the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
. That same month the company reported having answered over 1.7 billion questions. On April 20, 2012, ChaCha shut down operations in the United Kingdom; the company stated the reason for ending UK operations was that ''"adoption rates for new price-competitive services are quite low in the UK."'' On November 23, 2016, ChaCha discontinued the guide program due to having insufficient funds available. On December 12, 2016, ChaCha shut down operations due to declining advertising revenue, which left it unable to service its debt.


Products


Desktop search

ChaCha was founded with the intention to offer human-guided search from within a web browser and for the search engine to learn from the results provided by their freelancers. The system offered a chat on the left side of the page where users could
chat Chat or chats may refer to: Communication * Conversation, particularly casual * Online chat, text message communication over the Internet in real-time * Synchronous conferencing, a formal term for online chat * SMS chat, a form of text messagin ...
with the guides and conclude their search. The center of the page contained results that a guide could add or remove (later users could also add or remove these results). The right side of the page contained ads that were relevant to the search. Desktop search was phased out in April 2008 in favor of mobile products.


Mobile search

Users were able to send an SMS message with their question to 242–242, where Guides would then answer it. Standard messaging fees could apply, but ChaCha never charged additional fees.


Voice search

ChaCha launched its beta version of a call-in search service on April 1, 2008, while discontinuing its less effective guided web search. Users called a toll-free number (800-2ChaCha) to have a human answer their questions via SMS.


Mobile marketing

In July 2008, ChaCha launched its first mobile marketing campaign with Coca-Cola to promote its
My Coke Rewards My Coke Rewards was a customer loyalty marketing program for The Coca-Cola Company. Customers entered codes found on specially marked packages of Coca-Cola products on a website. Codes could also be entered "on the go" by texting them from a ce ...
program to users interested in
NASCAR The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. The privately owned company was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1948, and hi ...
racing.
Fox News The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is owne ...
reported that ChaCha planned by mid-2008 to charge users $5–10 per month once they exceeded 10 queries. However, by May 2009, no additional fees had been implemented, nor had any plans been officially announced by a reliable source. In November 2008, ChaCha launched its
SMS Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...
Advertising Platform at ad:tech New York City. In March 2009, ChaCha reported 30 million "impressions per month" and "3.6 million users" since January 2008. An ESPN 2009 article stated that ChaCha was getting about 1,000,000 questions each day according to their tipsheets. A former
Yahoo Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo! Inc. (2017–present), Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds ma ...
executive opened a New York City office for ChaCha in hopes of increasing advertising."ChaCha's CEO, Scott Jones, on layoffs, new funding and sales staff increases"
March 18, 2009 audio by InsideINdianaBusiness.com
In April 2009,
Rick Reilly Richard Paul Reilly (born February 3, 1958) is an American sportswriter. Long known for being the "back page" columnist for ''Sports Illustrated'', Reilly moved to ESPN on June 1, 2008, where he was a featured columnist for ESPN.com and wrote t ...
spent some time working at ChaCha for an article in ''
ESPN The Magazine ''ESPN The Magazine'' was an American monthly sports magazine published by the ESPN sports network in Bristol, Connecticut. The first issue was published on March 11, 1998. Initially published every other week, it scaled back to 24 issues a year i ...
''.


References


External links

* (Archive index) {{DEFAULTSORT:Chacha (Search Engine) Android (operating system) software Carmel, Indiana Defunct companies based in Indiana Defunct internet search engines Defunct software companies of the United States Human-edited search engines Human-based computation Internet properties disestablished in 2016 Internet properties established in 2006 IOS software Privately held companies based in Indiana Question-and-answer websites SMS-based question answering services Software companies based in Indiana