$16m investment cant buy you good geek press…

The revenue model for ChaCha must be straight ad versus text enquiry served - thats a huge money gamble on something which requires so much promotion… I’m often amazed this stuff gets funded. Verbatim from good old Techcrunch:

Full Article: ChaCha Launches Mobile Interface. They Still Suck.

Posted: 02 Jan 2008 11:53 PM CST

I was surprised this evening to receive an email from the ChaCha communications team about a new feature they’ve just launched. I say surprised because we have not been kind to the service in our three posts on them so far. In the most recent post, I called them “a bad idea, poorly executed.”The new feature is a mobile interface to the search engine - try it virtually here. Users can text a search query to 242242 and receive text results back on their phone.

I texted “What is the temperature in New York City?” to the service (I’m flying there tomorrow). Within moments I received a text message back welcoming me to the service:

Welcome to ChaCha’s FREE txt trial! Your phone just got smarter. Ask away. Your first answer will come shortly. Std txt charges apply. Send HELP for help.

“The company has raised $16 million in funding, including an investment from Jeff Bezos’ Bezos Expeditions.