Instead of using an algorithm to produce results, as Google and Yahoo do, ChaCha and KGB rely on people to generate their answers. ChaCha provides a free service that allows users to send queries by text or voice message and then receive a text reply, often accompanied by an advertisement, from one of the companys approximately 50,000 part-time responders. Competitor KGB has a similar setup, although its users pay 99 cents per answer and are spared the outside advertising with each response.

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