As i mentioned in a previous post this morning, i learned some about a new web-service called ChaCha that blends the benefits of Twitter and Wikipedia. You can basically, either through the Web or via your cell phone, ask ChaCha ANY question you can think of, and the company outsources your question to a network of 44,000 guides (volunteer crowd-sourcers who reply to ChaCha questions sourced to them based on identified areas of expertise) to supply you with a researched answer in just a couple of minutes.I signed up quickly for an account, and decided to test it out to see how it "flew". Here's what i tried and found out.
My test question?
Q: "What's the combined thrust to weigh ratio of an F-22 Raptor's engines?"
Answer supplied by ChaCha?
A: "The Raptor's two Pratt & Whitney F119-PW-100 engines pump out 35,000 pounds of thrust each. Thrust to weight ratio 1.13:1 ChaCha!"
The answer was supplied by a guide named Melissa, and she found my answer (all of this listed in the quick "answer blurb") by researching the following:
Howstuffworks "How F/A-22 Raptors Work"
http://science.howstuffworks.com/f-22-raptor.htm/printable
"Ooookay, that was pretty good!", i thought, "and even better, i had my answer in just a few minutes". Then, i decided to try it from my cell phone (ChaCha has the "Twitteresque" ability to use report to/from your mobile device OR the web, either way) to test the response time. I shot a text to ChaCha, set my stopwatch and waited. Here was my next question:
Q: "How does one kill an Aswang?" (Note: An Aswang is a Philipino mythological vampiric creature)
A: "You can shoot them with a gun."
Response Time: 3 minutes, 11 seconds.
Problem is, firearms are not typically listed as a reliable way to kill an Aswang, so even though the response was fast, it was incorrect. In addition, the source link supplied by the "guide" gave some info about the mythical creature, but never stated firearm useage in the article. There also wasn't an easily identifiable "reporting mechanism" to ChaCha to let them know it was incorrect short of the "contact us" form.
Ah well... still... fun product! Check it out!
Posts
1 comment:
sometimes the answers are hit or miss with the accuracy, but the conversational aspect is the trade-off (they are so funny sometimes!) better guides get paid more as incentive to improve accuracy (i am one, that's how i know!) it's a pretty new company so i'm sure they'll work out the kinks (saw your earlier post about techpoint)
Post a Comment