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@jeffw@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.worldEnglish • 1 year ago

Before Smartphones, an Army of Real People Helped You Find Stuff on Google

www.wired.com

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Before Smartphones, an Army of Real People Helped You Find Stuff on Google

www.wired.com

@jeffw@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.worldEnglish • 1 year ago
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Not too long ago, services like GOOG-411, 118 118 and AQA used actual humans to answer questions with witty responses and encyclopedic knowledge. Today’s search engines could learn something.
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  • @BurningnnTree@lemmy.one
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    20•1 year ago

    I remember using ChaCha. Good times

    • @SidewaysHighways@lemmy.world
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      10•1 year ago

      I made enough money on chacha one month to pay for some weed!

  • Matengor
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    16•1 year ago

    I didn’t even know about these services. It’s fascinating they were relevant for about ten years only. What a good read.

    • @sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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      11•1 year ago

      I used SMS google search and SMS ChaCha, they were great at a time when mobile data was super expensive.

      • @LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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        8•1 year ago

        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.

        • @sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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          2•1 year ago

          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.

          • @LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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            3•1 year ago

            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

            • @KAYDUBELL@lemmy.world
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              2•1 year ago

              Great song to have stuck in your head

              • @LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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                1•1 year ago

                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!

      • Harold_Penisman
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        2•1 year ago

        Totally forgot about ChaCha. Those were the days.

    • @jeffw@lemmy.worldOP
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      2•
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      1 year ago

      I had heard of them but had no idea there were so many of them or that they were so successful

  • @essteeyou@lemmy.world
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    12•1 year ago

    118 118 had great ads. My friend and I dressed as the 118 118 guys for a sports event at work. :-D

    https://youtu.be/vB9H1Ot7j0s

    • @Lmaydev@programming.dev
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      0•1 year ago

      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.

  • @IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world
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    11•1 year ago

    Ask Jeeves was doing this before Google existed…

    • @Fredselfish@lemmy.world
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      5•1 year ago

      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.

      • @erwan@lemmy.ml
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        9•1 year ago

        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.

        • @Fredselfish@lemmy.world
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          1•1 year ago

          Not talking about that one. The article mention multiple different types of platforms.

    • @jeffw@lemmy.worldOP
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      0•1 year ago

      Ask Jeeves wasn’t an actual person though

      • @IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world
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        10•1 year ago

        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.

  • @boatsnhos931@lemmy.world
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    4•1 year ago

    Ain’t that so sweet

  • recursive_recursion [they/them]
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    2•1 year ago

    guess we replaced Google
    Noice🤌

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