ChaCha SMS vs. Google SMS

Google Text & ChaCha

Google Text service is amazingly fast answering service. I can send SMS to 466453 and type something like “Weather 10001” and it will send me weather report for New York City. Or, I can type in “Movies 10001” and it will reply with a list of movies, then I can select a specific movie and Google Text will reply with theaters that are playing that movie, including show times.

So far so good, but then why look into ChaCha (242242) SMS service. This depends on what you are searching for and how long you’re willing to wait for the correct answer to get back to you. Google Text replies very fast, but it has its limits. If you send in the question “How much do Google shares cost today?” it will reply “Sorry, ‘How much do Google shares cost today?’ did not return any results.

However, if you send in the same question to ChaCha (242242) it takes around one minute to reply, but the answer I get back is “The current share cost for Google is $463.29. This number is down from a high of $473.78. Thank you for using ChaCha.” This is based on today, Saturday, August 30, 2008.

The reason for different answer or time it takes to answer is simple, Google Text does not use human search power. It uses its database and query system to query which movie is playing at what time, but if you type a question, it cannot find the answer. For me to get the similar answer from Google Text, I have to type in “Stock Goog” rather than the whole question. It works then. However it still does not answer the following question.

Question asked to Google Text: “How old is presidential candidate Obama?”, of course, it cannot find answer. But asking same question to ChaCha, I get “DOB: August 4, 1961- 46 years old.”.

To make it even better, I can call 1-800-224-2242 and ask the same question. So if you are driving or, like myself, don’t like typing with your phone’s keyboard, you can always call the ChaCha service and ask any questions. ChaCha will send you SMS once the answer is available.

Many like me currently use both of these services since each one has something unique to offer. One takes less time to give you the answer it finds and the other takes as much time it needs to find the right answer. So which service you use totally depends on what question you are asking and how fast you need the answer.

Google & ChaCha