How old is Harrison Ford?
“Harrison Ford, born July 13, 1942 … age 65.”
Will the Seattle Mariners be in the World Series this year?
“Seattle is in last place and unless they get to first place by midseason, they will not be in the World Series.”
How long is a carrot?
“All carrots are different in size.”
Yep, ChaCha seems to know it all. The free phone service is like having an on-call trivia nut, ready to settle a bet or hook you up with an address you forgot to jot down.
It works like this: Using your cell phone, you call or text 800-2ChaCha and pose a question. The service routes the question to one of more than 30,000 guides.
Each guide has taken a test to qualify for the position and has areas of expertise. The guide replies after some quick research and is paid a token amount — way, way below a dollar, according to the company — for giving correct answers.
The whole process takes a few minutes, with the answer arriving via text message. Standard texting fees still apply.
The phone service, which launched in January, draws financial support from technology entrepreneurs including Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos.
ChaCha co-founder Brad Bostic said the service will never sell a number or spam a phone. He hopes to make it a go-to means for information, like 411 melded with a more accurate version of Wikipedia.org.
“We want it to be much more ubiquitous than that (Wikipedia),” he said. “…People are on their mobile phones exponentially more than they are on their computer.”
To learn more about the service, visit www.chacha.com.
Andy Rathbun Herald Writer
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