Google rocks most of the time. But sometimes you’re looking for a result that’s hard to express in words. Maybe the lyrics to a song, an actor in a movie you can’t recall or even the appropriate birthday gift for your spouse. This is where a new type of search comes in called ChaCha. If you can use Google, you can use ChaCha so the learning curve isn’t a problem. The main feature of ChaCha is that when you type a word or phrase into its engine, a small pane off to the left shows up and you’re assigned a “guide” who will assist you with your search. The pane resides in your browser so it’s easy to chat with your guide while the results they locate show up in the center pane. As you see results show up, you are able to start searching immediately while the guide continues in the background. This allows you to give feedback in real time which can help the guide drill down to what you’re after. They have done a nice job with the UI.
I’ve been trying this service out for a few days and although I feel like I know many tricks for getting the best results from Google, I was surprised at how helpful these guides can be. I did a search for “2002 BMW 325i reviews” and a guide took me to several that were better than what I’d found on my own. I also found the guides to be very friendly and fast.
Give it a try the next time Google isn’t spitting out what you’re after. If you like it you may want to install the ChaCha toolbar which makes it easy to start up a session with a guide. Once your sessions is finished you’ll be asked to rate your guide. From what I understand, guides are paid between five and ten dollars an hour. Both guides I’ve used where very helpful.
One last item: I had trouble getting the guide results to show up when using Firefox the first time I tried it. I didn’t have the same problems using IE 7.
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