The majority of people on the internet today use Google, Yahoo!, or MSN to search on the Internet (yes other search engines are used but unfortunately they are in the minority). Google has kind of become the Microsoft of search - it has basically monopolized the search sector.

Many startups don’t have a chance at competing with Google. However, a new site - ChaCha.com - tries to approach searching on the Internet into a different experience all together.

ChaCha has just been released for experimental use. That means that it isn’t ready for every single request out there at this moment but want to showcase what they do have at this stage.

ChaCha’s creators basically hated how when you search in the popular engines today you often get results that aren’t even what you look for. The results stored in search engines are archived by a human.

ChaCha uses human intelligence. It basically uses “Guides” who are knowledgable about the subject (eventually ChaCha will have experts) who suggest sites that are relavent to your search.

Each page of the results is the sites suggested by a Guide. You also are able to view the resources they used and the Top 5 Guide Resources for the specific section you are searching for.

Not only that but you also can rate the Guide’s results and provide feedback to ChaCha.

If you want to ask them a question regarding where to find a site about a subject you can also do that as well - live. That’s right, you can ask a guide live about a topic and begin chatting instantly on how to find it.

I talked to one guide after typing in a keyword, and was shocked at the quickness of the response. We literally were chatting instantly.

I think that human intelligence always beats automated results. I hate when popular search engines spew spam sites, at me that are trying to pass off as a real content site. This problem basically gets fixed with ChaCha. It also give the user a more personal feel to the results.

The ChaCha Underground basically allows you to find Guides by sifting through a directory of topics to find a guide, and view their profile. It also is a place for the all the Guides to hang out.

The one thing I noticed was that it took a long time (a couple seconds) for the results to display. I hope this is improved in the future. Also the results didn’t display in Opera web browser.

The future looks promising for ChaCh, as I was blown away by search engine, and once they are out of beta I’m sure many will like the service it provides.