Last weekend, during a traffic-filled driving trip past the NYC Waterfalls (cool, btw) to Brooklyn to check out the new Ikea (fucking shitshow, btw), I learned of a relatively new service called ChaCha. Similar to Google SMS, the service lets you submit a question via text (to CHACHA, or 242242) and then responds to you with an answer. Unlike Google SMS, however, these responses are generated by human ChaCha ‘guides’ with perky personalities, and this human-to-human aspect creates opportunities for both random questions and amusing answers.
A sample of actual ChaCha exchanges from our drive…
Is there an Ikea in Brooklyn?
Lucky you, there sure is! It’s on Beard St. Their number is 718-246-IKEA.How do I tell a girl I like her?
Start out by making the transition from “stranger” to “that guy I see around.” As you flirt with this girl, find small ways to [cut off].Should I buy white jeans?
If they look good on you, and you like them, then I say, go for it!Should I shave my beard off?
Yeah, facial hair is overrated.Does size really matter?
In basketball, it seems to. But, in all other areas, ability, attitude, performance, & technique count for a lot more.
And of course…
Does Amish Shah have a blog? If so, is it any good?
Amish Shah has a page, I don’t know if it is any good or not because I don’t know what you like
Well played, ChaCha. Well played.
Of course, after playing with this throughout the day and into the night, I just had to know what it was like on the other side. I had heard that becoming a guide wasn’t easy, that there were a lot of steps that I needed to complete, but I wanted to see for myself. I scoped out the website, and after thoughtfully crafting a 500-character response to the question “Why would you be a good guide”, I submitted my application.
The next morning, I received an email with the subject “You’re invited to become a ChaCha Guide.” I was elated at the thought that they’d bought my lines about wit, technical-savvy, love for writing, and appreciation for trivia. But when I opened the email, I realized that I had only merely passed the first part of the process. Next, I had to..
1) Fill out tax forms
2) Take a series of three tests on general problem solving, typing, and SMS/research
3) Learn how the guide system worked
4) Take a simulator test and respond to 15 incoming questions
Only after completing and passing all of those would I become a live guide. The simulator test worried me most…As I soon learned, the guide process is rather challenging, as all questions - no matter how odd - must be responded to with a legitimate source (Wikipedia does NOT count), and must be responded to within a certain timeframe. Would I be able to find an answer to “Does size really matter” and cite a source within 3 minutes?
I completed the simulator test with a medium level of confidence. Most of the questions weren’t too hard to deal with, but occasionally I got stalled finding a non-Wikipedia source to back up an answer I already knew (”What company is Warren Buffett the head of?”, for example). The response-time monitoring really got to me, and I found myself just barely getting answers in with only the facts, and no witty ChaCha “magic” sprinkled in. Sure I was accurate, but I wasn’t very “fun”. Would they accept me?
Yes. Yes they would.
After a full day of waiting, I received notification that I had been accepted as a ChaCha guide. And now I am here, world, ready to answer your questions at the whopping rate of $0.20 per pop. Ask away!
Email: me [at] amishshah [dot] com
9 responses so far ↓
rishi // Jul 2, 2008 at 2:18 pm
i asked again
http://search.chacha.com/u/p3xb01gk
laksmi shittal // Jul 2, 2008 at 4:02 pm
this was a pretty legit little piece of gonzo journalism, son. fresh.
Kido // Jul 7, 2008 at 3:36 pm
This has nothing to do with this post, but did you know there’s a Pancheros in Jersey? Not exactly sure where, but it’s on the way to AC. Thought you should know, for those really desperate moments
Sean // Jul 11, 2008 at 4:08 am
Do you remember the pop up page directly after you completed the test? Mine said something about not having a position and I can’t figure out if it is an polite way of telling me that I failed or if thats really what they meant.
Amish // Jul 11, 2008 at 9:51 am
Sorry Sean, I don’t remember the pop up page (not sure if I even got one). I just logged out after doing my 15 simulator questions and then a day later they told me I was in. Good luck!
Rakesh // Jul 16, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Yao man, I read your post and decided to use Chacha to answer a question my buddy and I were had no luck googling. “In the lead photo of the article, Promises To Keep, in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine” we asked, “Where is Obama standing?” The smug operators at Chacha responded, “In the foreground.” Okay, we thought to ourselves, we’ll specify we’d like to know where the photo was taken. Once again Chaha reminded us that we were just wasting their time and responded, “No where in the article does it say where he is standing.” C’mon, Chaha. Duh. We read the article, we were turning to you because we believed you would be a research resource capable of more thoroughly rooting out answers than our lackadaisical google searches. Clearly, however, the guy on the other end of my inquiries was just like me, lazy and trying to coast at work. Bad experience, Chacha.
Amish // Jul 17, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Sorry to hear that Rakesh. There’s thousands of guides out there (I think ChaCha gets a few hundred thousand queries a day), so there’s bound to be a few quality control issues. The good news is that there’s some sort of rating/evaluation system so hopefully those types of issues get ironed out.
Katie // Jul 25, 2008 at 5:31 pm
You get .20 a pop for every question you answer or I get charged .20 per question?
Amish // Jul 26, 2008 at 12:32 pm
I get the 20 cents from ChaCha, but the user (you) pays nothing.
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