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IU's Choice of Search Engine ChaCha "Explained"

Posted by kdawson on from the how-many-speechwriters-does-it-take dept.

theodp sends a follow-up to the discussion here a couple of months back about Indiana University librarians and students being forced to use the 'human-powered' ChaCha search engine because IU's President and one of its Trustees were business buddies of ChaCha CEO (and IU alum) Scott Jones. Don't be ridiculous, insisted indignant IU officials. It was ChaCha's ability to fill in gaps in a speech he was writing in 2007 that convinced IU's CIO that the University had to do a deal with ChaCha. What a coincidence, notes Valleywag. The need to fill in gaps in a speech he was writing back in 2005 is what convinced ChaCha CEO Jones that he had to create ChaCha in the first place. Way to anticipate what your customers need before they do.

5 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. What!? by KEnderK · · Score: 4, Funny

    I thought ChaCha's only reason to exist was so you could abuse the people who help you search!

  2. Conflict of Interest by Pantero+Blanco · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I cannot see any way that someone could make a defensible argument for a University forcing its students to use a particular search engine. It's just braindead. When the person making the decision is a director of (or anyone with a significant stake in) the company benefitting, it goes beyond being stupid and irresponsible and becomes corrupt.

    How does IU pull this off, anyway? Do they actually block Google, Yahoo, etc?

    1. Re:Conflict of Interest by coolate · · Score: 5, Informative

      I work At IU, it is actually just replacing the search engine on the site www.iu.edu, it was/is google. No one is being forced at all to use it, in fact most users have google for their homepage. Now they can use a special version of cha cha on the IU homepage that is supported by the Library staff and lab consultants. It will also give special access to the library's periodicals and other online documents if a student is logged in. To be honest I think they will still be using google hardware for some searches.

  3. Re:what's the suprise? by DaleGlass · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't get this kind of post. It seems to be saying "big deal, everybody does that, why did this even get posted?"

    While I'm not surprised at all this sort of thing happens this IMO doesn't mean it shouldn't be reported on. Maybe then it'll happen a bit less often.

  4. Re:All the silly names made me laugh by 3vi1 · · Score: 4, Funny

    I don't see what's so silly about it. My friend Joanie loves Cha Cha.

    Thank god for Google - I had no idea how to spell Joanie.

    -J