Silver's Home
  • Communities
  • Create Post
  • heart
    Support Lemmy
  • search
    Search
  • Login
  • Sign Up
@jeffw@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.worldEnglish • 11 months ago

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

www.wired.com

external-link
message-square
22
fedilink
213
external-link

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

www.wired.com

@jeffw@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.worldEnglish • 11 months ago
message-square
22
fedilink
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.
  • @sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    12•11 months ago

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

    • @LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      9•11 months 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
        link
        fedilink
        English
        2•11 months 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
          link
          fedilink
          English
          3•11 months 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
            link
            fedilink
            English
            3•11 months ago

            Great song to have stuck in your head

            • @LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              1•11 months 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
      link
      fedilink
      English
      2•11 months ago

      Totally forgot about ChaCha. Those were the days.

Technology@lemmy.world

!technology@lemmy.world

Subscribe from Remote Instance

Create a post
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !technology@lemmy.world

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


  • @L4s@lemmy.world
  • @autotldr@lemmings.world
  • @PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks
  • @wikibot@lemmy.world
  • 4.35K users / day
  • 9.24K users / week
  • 17.8K users / month
  • 37.5K users / 6 months
  • 70K subscribers
  • 14.8K Posts
  • 651K Comments
  • Modlog
  • mods:
  • @L3s@lemmy.world
  • enu
  • Technopagan
  • L4sBot
  • L3s
  • @L4s@hackingne.ws
  • BE: 0.19.3
  • Modlog
  • Instances
  • Docs
  • Code
  • join-lemmy.org