"Everybody Likes To Cha Cha Cha...."

I was reminded of the Sam Cooke song lyric above when I got an email from blog reader Jennifer in Sacramento. She wrote:

"I heard about this cool website yesterday. You can sign up for free and then text message any question you want and get a text message answer back. The website is www.chacha.com  A friend who belongs to a club that I do told me about it. Check it out."

Thanks, Jen. Here's how the website describes its service:

"Ask any question in conversational English from a cell phone. Call 800-2ChaCha or text 242242 and get the answer as a text message in a few minutes."

Some of the examples of questions shown on the site are, "Where can I get pizza near Spring St. and 6th Ave. in NYC?" and "Is there a way to remove acrylic paint from jeans?"

So, not being too proud to beg, I tried it out. For some reason the very first question that came to my mind was, "How does the moon affect the earth's tides?"

About two minutes later, I got this text back on my phone, "Moon's gravity tugs on the ocean enough to make a bulge form in the sea below the moon. As Earth turns ocean shores go into bulge."

The Wikipedia page about the service says that real people answer the questions, not an automated search engine. So I was pretty impressed with the speed and the quality of my response.

Caveat! Thing One:  The site says, "standard text messaging rates apply" and I have no idea what those are and how much my little experiment cost me, if anything.

Caveat! Thing Two: If your wife sees a text message from something called ChaCha.com be prepared to potentially have some 'splainin' to do. I'm just sayin'. It could be misunderstood.

Comments

[alisa]

they must be busy. it took four minutes to get a response on how to make a perfectly soft boiled egg.

it's a neat service. i'll let you know if i ever need to use it for real.

[Melvin]

I asked, "How can I get Bean to stop blogging?" No answer yet, but I'll keep you posted. ;)

[Raul]

Pretty neat site. Another internet idea missed by me.

[Kings Fan]

My first question resulted in a less than exciting answer. I asked where the bext Mexican restaurant was in Cerritos, CA and it told me Rubio's Baja Grille. I already love me the Rubio's, but thought I was going to be turned on to somewhere new.

[Kelly]

My answer took a minute. Next time, I'll ask something I dont' know the answer to! Cool site - Thanks Bean!

[Monica W.]

the age old question has been answered.. Johnny Cash is a better musican then Elvis! thanks ChaCha!!!!

[Suzy]

wow, this is a great idea and I'm glad it actually exists! and with real people, that are native English speakers nonetheless. thanks for the heads up, I'll definitely try this out soon.

[Miss Grace]

I'm a chacha guide :)