Chacha.com The Newest Search Engine, with a Twist

Chacha.com is the latest search engine to enter the scene with one huge difference. It's powered by people. It's not a new concept, both google and yahoo have offered sections of their search engine that allow other people to find your answers for you, but it's always cost you money. What allows Chacha.com to do the same for free? Simply, its advertising.

When you pull up chacha, you'll first see two options. Search, or search with a guide. If you type in "Subaru Impreza Reviews" and perform a standard search, then you'll be given a list of websites that a guide had previously found before if someone else had performed a search for "Subaru Impreza Reviews". If the websites aren't quite what you're looking for then you can press 'Search with guide". You'll then be connected within seconds to a live, trained and paid guide who will help you to find exactly what you need.

Chacha recently upgraded their programs and systems to a newer "beta" version, which is much more stable than before. It's still a work in progress, but glitches are very rare now. The interface is very easy to use, and the owner of chacha has called it "Instant messaging with a purpose", which is apparently what it is drafted from. When the guide screen opens, there is a box on the left to chat with the guide, a box in the middle for links and search results, and on the right there are the ads and videos that pay for chachas services.

Most of the guides on chacha use google or yahoo to track down their results, so you may ask why not just do it for yourself in less time? If you're an older person that's not used to searching the internet, chacha can be perfect. Guides can give clear instructions, and help to find obscure information that even websavy users may not be able to dig up. Since they spend so much time training and working with searches, they are extremely quick. In fact I've had them pull up great results in less than 30 seconds that I couldn't find myself.

So chacha hasn't gone out and done anything revolutionary. It's been done before, but the way they have pulled it off is revolutionary. If they can keep making enough money off the ads to keep paying their guides, chacha will continue to grow and improve. So far their new approach at quality over quantity has been paying off.