Do you ever sit staring at the blinking cursor of a search engine, not quite knowing what you’re looking for, let alone how to approach it?

A week or two ago I was looking for the name of an invention, but had no idea how to start searching for it. After asking a few people in the office, Carlos mentioned a new search engine he’d been toying around with.

Cha Cha is one of the so called “new breed” of search engines. Although the concept is not new, Cha Cha is the first big social search engine, and uses a combination of Boolean and human logic. One half of the site is your everyday search engine providing all you’d expect from an engine. The other half of the engine is manned by a collection of “Guides”, with whom you can chat live and logically explain your query.

As much as I like the idea, I’ve used the service three times now, and have yet to receive a conclusion on either of my searches. In all three cases I offered as much extra information as possible as we got ‘chatting’.

1. The name of the personal human transporter which was invented a few years ago. The guide knew what I was talking about, but eventually just disappeared before giving me an answer. I remembered the name Segway in a dream a few days later.
2. A tougher challenge: Why does an automatic kettle not switch off if the lid is ajar? After about 10 to 15 minutes the guide sent me a pdf of the owners manual for some European kettle, which I studied thinking the answer would be inside. I’m still curious.
3. The name of an internet marketing company in Cape Town, South Africa. I continued to offer hints like, “I think it starts with a 'Q’”, “They have offices in Johannesburg, Cape Town and London”. The results started came in, but none that started with the letter Q. I offered more hints, and eventually left after the results started duplicating.

I was really excited when I first heard about Cha Cha. I often do some pretty obscure searches that need that human touch, and think it’s a great idea. Perhaps I asked three tricky ones? Either way, here’s to the success of Cha Cha, and the evolution of a service which I think will be great once the kinks are ironed out.