As mobile search becomes more personal and readily used, the accessibility around mobile-friendly app design has opened up opportunities for companies such as ChaCha. Funded by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, ChaCha’s mobile presence has been extended to Android, thanks to a contest encouraging apps to be built around its community-driven search tool.
As information is now so easily shared across social sites and user-generated platforms, mobile apps can tap into that crowd sourcing in order to create some rather useful Android apps. Here are some that are designed just for ChaCha, as well as others which take a similar approach.
Just for ChaCha
ChaCha Droid, now the default ChaCha Android app, has voice search, comments and a home screen widget, in addition to the service’s portal access. Free, the app shows the ChaCha Trends for each query result, showing its current relevance as a resolved question.
Despite the name, ChaCha Answers searches Ask.com for queries as well. The free Android app has voice search and a clean set of answers for your question. Useful for those familiar with ChaCha’s mobile search engine, the Answers app operates with similar functionalities. Though lacking social network integration, ChaCha Answers appears to be more stable across multiple Android devices than other ChaCha search apps.
Quick ChaCha is a simple portal to access queried content, with an option for you to submit your own question. Search the Top 25 questions posted to ChaCha, and view the number of responses for each. The free Android app lets you submit questions as well, with a menu option for viewing your posted content.
Community-driven mobile search
The kgb Answers Android app is similar in concept to ChaCha, but you’ll have to pay for individual queries later on down the line. As a search tool, however, the free Android app is still useful. You can star responses for future access, and share your findings with friends; a feature ChaCha promotes indirectly and outside of its standalone mobile apps.
Yahoo! Answers Droid is another that pings a community-driven search tool, with filters being a primary function of the free Android app. Set your search for date and location ranges, or categories. Another helpful filter with this type of search separates unresolved queries from those that have actually been answered.
Twitter may be a different kind of community-driven search all together, but its content is being incorporated more into official search services. HootSuite’s $2.99 pro Twitter app offers more extensive search options, so that you can better utilize user content for necessary feedback, though it’s a custom and more manual solution for now.
Answers on the Fly is a community-driven search tool limited to Android users. While the content isn’t Android-specific, access is. Free, this app turns the user-driven Q&A process into a game, with points spent and rewarded for answering and voting on content. Posts are regulated to avoid spam questions and answers.
