ChaCha provides election research via text message

ChaCha, the mobile answer service backed by Jeff Bezos’ Bezos Expeditions, is working with youth voting initiative Rock the Vote to help people get election-related facts via text message.

The process is simple: Send a text message to RTVOTE (788683) and a ChaCha guide — a real, live person, in this case supposedly trained to give nonpartisan information about politics — will give you an answer. You can ask for practical information like how to register to vote, or bone up on the candidates’ policies and records. A short, snappy text message doesn’t exactly provide the depth that you’d get doing your own research, but hey, it requires less work and is easily digestible.

I gave the service a try this afternoon, and received answers to my questions within a few minutes. How satisfying were those answers? Well, the text message format is definitely a bit limiting. First, I asked a policy-related question: Will Joe the Plumber‘s taxes increase under Barack Obama’s plan? Answer: “It appears so — Obama is a regular old Robin Hood — take from the rich and give to the poor!” (The truth is a bit more complicated than that, according to The New York Times.) Then I sent in my address and asked where my polling place will be. ChaCha sent me a precinct number and ballot type. Uh, an address might have been more useful.

Quibbles aside, this is definitely a cool use of ChaCha’s technology. The Indianapolis company was founded in 2006. Last year, VentureBeat Editor Matt Marshall sounded a bit mixed on the company’s chances as a web-based search engine powered by human labor, but was more optimistic about its then-in-development mobile application. Now it looks like the mobile application has replaced the company’s web search.

ChaCha says it has more than 1 million users and has raised a total of $19 million.