Ask Jeeves was doing this before Google existed…
Ask Jeeves wasn’t an actual person though
Ask Jeeves was a “question answering service” back then. They had a staff of human editors who curated answers to popular questions. Nothing they answered back then was done via search.
Source: I worked for a search engine startup in the 90’s that was acquired by Ask Jeeves when they realized they needed a true search technology since human editing wasn’t scalable.
Wonder if there a way bring any of these types of services back and be affordable? Like the part of chatting with older people. There are lots of old people in this world who would love to have some to talk with.
GOOG-411 was created specifically for Google to gather voice samples, with different ages, accents, etc. to train voice recognition. It was never for the sake of providing a service.
118 118 had great ads. My friend and I dressed as the 118 118 guys for a sports event at work. :-D
We did this for a friend’s birthday at uni. There were about 20 of us. Great night haha
I used to love texting these numbers when drunk.
I didn’t even know about these services. It’s fascinating they were relevant for about ten years only. What a good read.
I had heard of them but had no idea there were so many of them or that they were so successful
I used SMS google search and SMS ChaCha, they were great at a time when mobile data was super expensive.
I remember texting chacha if every rose has its thorn, to which they would respond that according to the 1988 song released by Poison, every rose does have its thorn.
I can’t remember so many things from that part of my life, why that stuck, no idea.
That’s a fantastic song though. I didn’t grow up in that era, but it’s most of what I listen to these days.
I wasn’t born till 89, so not my era either. But music comes from all eras. I think I spent half yesterday with Ain’t No Sunshine stuck in my head. That was 71? I think
Great song to have stuck in your head
2 validations in a row. It’s 9:41am here. It’s going to be a good day. I hope you have a great one as well!
Totally forgot about ChaCha. Those were the days.
I remember using ChaCha. Good times
I made enough money on chacha one month to pay for some weed!
Ain’t that so sweet
guess we replaced Google
Noice🤌
