ChaCha Blog

It was announced yesterday that Google would be pulling the cord on Google Answers. The Google Blog chalked it up to an “experiment coming to an end” but that seems like more of a posthumous explaination rather than a working auspice. One might argue that Google’s fantastic growth called not so much for the death of Google Answers, but rather Google trimming off the fat to concentrate on what they already do well rather than develop new products as they’ve resolved to do. Regardless of the reason, that leaves Yahoo Answers as the top contender in the social search realm and, in my opinion, this bodes very well for us.

Compared to Yahoo Answers, Google Answers was able to provide great results with well thought out answers and appropriate links. Sure you had to pay for the service, but you got what you paid for by getting comprehensive answers like the ones below. Yahoo! Answers, on the other hand, is free.  There are plenty of users on there who just love being right and knowing the answer and can provide similarly good answers, but there are also plenty  users who provide some unsavory results. However, Yahoo! has recently begun to index their answers which is a great step forward for them.

Scott Jones, ChaCha’s CEO and mastermind, was mentioned on Greg Sterling’s blog, which said this:

“Unlike Google Answers, ChaCha’s service is FREE, is conducted in real-time (through an instant-message chat interface) and questions are answered by people with specific knowledge about your topic (AND they care about providing a good answer because their rating and pay is based on a good experience!)”

So farewell Google Answers. You did what you did well and provided some great answers like this, this, or this. Besides, who’s to say that its departure isn’t just a passage into purgatory in before some revamped service in the same vein is launched? Despite Google’s withdrawl from this arena, social search is HOT right now; we’ve noticed new social search services and engines popping up left and right. None of them seem to have mechanics worked out quite as well as we do and for being alive just under three months anyone would have to say we’ve made a great impact in the industry.

Even more impressive is the amount of technological breakthroughs we’ve made behind the scenes that make this whole system work… and we’re not even close to done. Some of the things we still have up our sleeves will knock your socks off. The cherry on top of the whole awesome-search-engine-sundae is the stellar amount of growth we’ve seen in our community of users and infoseekers. These things are still TOP-SECRET so I can’t spill any beans; just make sure you keep an eye on us! Our traffic is steadily growing and we’re thoroughly refining our Guide pool to get ready to let a flood of fresh Guides into the system. In the wake of Google Answers’ demise, things at ChaCha are taking off like a rocket.

With that said, I’d like to extend an offer to all Google Answerers to come search for ChaCha! I can say with confidence that things will definitely be getting more and more exciting and you would be great assets in helping us climb to the top of Mt. Social Search to show who is who. If you’re interested, shoot me an email or leave me a comment. I’m sure our ChaCha Guide Community would welcome you into the fold.