Network Cha Cha
Already struggling with network challenges? Wait—
there’s a new headache on the horizon.
One of the nice things about
penning this column is that I
can write about anything I have
“seen & heard” that I believe may have a
real impact on campuses and their use
of technology. That means: something
that already is having an impact, or
something I predict may one day have
an impact. Of course, it’s always more
fun to take the fortune-teller route; if it
comes to pass that I’m right, I’ve not
only had fun prognosticating, but people
think I’m smart, too. (Always worth
the risk, at least for an editor.) And if I’m
wrong, I’m still out there, trying to prepare
you folks for the next wave. And
the next wave, as I see it, is all about
ChaCha, and I don’t mean the dance.
Head over to www.ChaCha.com, and
you may think you’ve found just another
new search engine, but actually,
ChaCha is a whole lot more. Users can
not only hop on ChaCha to find information,
but they can hop on the search
engine to find someone else who will
find the information for them. Ah, the
great American work ethic: Why clean
your house, cook your food, walk your
dog, wash your car, when you can find
someone else to do it for you? This may
not be so unreasonable at that: As anyone
who has ever conducted any web
research—personal or otherwise—will
tell you, though the internet may be fast,
a hunt for kernels of information buried
in tera-heaps of other information can
take quite a while. (How many of us
have sat down at our computers after
dinner to find out just a wee bit more
about something, and then have signed
off at 1 a.m.—only a scant five hours
after we keyed in our first search word?)
On ChaCha, anyone who wants to
earn extra money and qualifies (yes,
there are questionnaires and tests
involved), can become a personal (read:
human) “guide,” existing only to help millions
of people conduct information
searches they are just too busy to conduct
themselves. For the informationseekers,
this kind of assistance can be
more reasonable than the “soft” cost of
the internet-surfing hours (in work time
lost, for instance). But for the ChaCha
guides, the job can be a goldmine.
First off, ChaCha guides are not only
paid five to 10 dollars per research hour,
but they are paid as they work, and
almost instantaneously. In fact, if sending
out checks the same day is not fast
enough action, their compensation can
be downloaded directly to their debit
cards (work in the a.m., shop in the
p.m.). And second of all, almost anyone
can sign on as a ChaCha guide, if he or
she qualifies. (I assume there is a minimum
age, but my guess is that anyone of
working age would make the first cut.)
Finally (and most importantly), a ChaCha
guide can work from anywhere, as long
as he or she has access to a computer
and internet connection. That means
part-timers, mothers at home with their
children, and (are you thinking what I’m
thinking?), college kids.
So, if you were thinking that you only
had to worry about students’ use of
computers for schoolwork, chatting,
blogging, downloading music (legal and
otherwise), MySpace-ing, Facebook-ing,
and nefarious activities too numerous
to mention here, you are now about to
have another problem on your hands:
Your enterprising student community is
soon to become one of the largest paid
internet task forces in the world, and
your network will be their gateway to a
highway paved with five-dollar bills. You
heard it here first.
—Katherine Grayson, Editor-In-Chief
What have you seen and heard? Send to: [email protected].