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IphtashuFitz ,

Ask Jeeves was doing this before Google existed…

jeffw OP ,
@jeffw@lemmy.world avatar

Ask Jeeves wasn’t an actual person though

IphtashuFitz ,

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.

Fredselfish ,
@Fredselfish@lemmy.world avatar

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 ,

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 ,
@Fredselfish@lemmy.world avatar

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

boatsnhos931 ,

Ain't that so sweet

BurningnnTree ,

I remember using ChaCha. Good times

SidewaysHighways ,

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

matengor ,
@matengor@lemmy.ml avatar

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

jeffw OP ,
@jeffw@lemmy.world avatar

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

sugar_in_your_tea ,

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

LifeInMultipleChoice ,

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 ,

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 ,

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 ,

Great song to have stuck in your head

LifeInMultipleChoice ,

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 ,
@Harold_Penisman@lemmy.world avatar

Totally forgot about ChaCha. Those were the days.

essteeyou ,

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 ,

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.

recursive_recursion ,
@recursive_recursion@programming.dev avatar

guess we replaced Google
Noice🤌

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