ChaCha.com is a new search engine that adds flesh and blood guides to the search process.

The inventors Scott Jones and Brad Bostic are testing a new search engine called ChaCha.com that is powered by — brace yourself — human beings.

Now, what’s new about that, you may ask, even a directory like Dmoz is powered by human beings, as are content sites like About.com.

Well, the main difference is that searchers are to get personal help if needed. That’s right. If the search engine cannot serve you relevant result, it will lead you to a real person — a guide — that will try to answer them for you.

Users may contact the guide by use of instant messenger on the ChaCha home page. The user may then chat with this guide, asking any questions he or she may like.

According to SFGuide the site will have around 3,000 guides when the program is released, many of them college students, retirees and stay-at-home parents.

These guides will also help ChaCha build a database of answers to popular questions, a function that is related to, but not quite like, answer services like Answer.com. As a matter of fact, there is a separate search button for this database on the home page — the so called “ChaCha Search”.

The guides are organised in the ChaCha Underground, a separate site with a directory of all the guides categorized according to interests.

According to Information Week the guides will be paid for the number of hours spent answering queries, from 5 to 10 US$ according to rank.

The main problem will probably be the scale of the venture. If people have to wait to long for a response, they may leave never to come back again.

Secondly, ChaCha has to make sure that the guides are properly trained. They have to be pretty good at using the other search engines and online databases if they are to find relevant high quality information quickly.

There are some 2500 guides working already, so do try the service. Don’t be surprised to find an error message when you visit it, though. The search engine is definitely in its testing phase.

See also:
Webmaster World Discussion
New Engine ‘ChaCha’ Offers Real-Time Answers From Live ‘Guides’ (Search Engine Watch)