text questions to ChaCha & get answers

Have you heard of ChaCha yet? It's a place people can get answers (from real people) just by calling or texting.

It's a venue I personally think libraries should have been in LONG AGO, but alas, here we are.

I have a mixed review of ChaCha- I've used it a few times to see what it was like and only about 1/2 the time did i get an answer i liked. Perhaps I hold these things to a higher standard than most non-librarians would, but i wasn't totally impressed.

I WAS impressed, however, at HOW i could get an answer and HOW FAST it was. I'm in the grocery store wondering if peaches, apples, and carrots all have pectin in them and within minutes, I know that Apples have a lot of pectin, peaches have a little, and carrots have none. What would the response have been if i called my local library with that question? I couldn't have asked AskUsNow! because I was in the grocery store!

Betty@AACPL fwded a Marketplace Radio spot about ChaCha to the listserv: "Texting experts for an Internet search"

What are your thoughts on ChaCha and this method of Q&A?
I think it speaks greatly towards library's epic role- as information providers, question answerer's, search guides, and best friends... not just the collectors and purveyors of books (which is only ONE medium information comes in).

Big list-o-sites that teach you how to do stuff

I'm all for learning new and random things and when i can find it free on the web it's even better.

ReadWriteWeb.com just posted "A Big List of Sites That Teach You How To Do Stuff."

Some of my favorites from the list are Instructables.com and Squidoo.com.

There is of course always MAKE (which is a zine of awesomeness... and whose website has video and podcasts of projects) and my old standby (though it doesn't have video), soyouwanna.com, which, oddly enough, was created by my boyfriend's cousin back in the day. Small world.