A New Attempt by Indiana University and ChaCha
Saturday, August 25th, 2007IU and ChaCha partner to create first of its kind academic search service
http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/6102.html
(JK told this news to me. Thanks, JK!)
ChaCha: search + brainpower | Simple Access, Better Answers
http://www.chacha.com/
(Human-Guided Search: Real-time Chats + Search Results by humans at this time. I tried this service tonight. From a view point of search engines, that was a new experience. I would like to support any attempt at novelty. But it was a little bit difficult for me to have a chat to explain what I really want only with short texts, to estimate the results given by the guide continuously, and to tell what I was feeling in a polite manner, at once in addition. 
Of course, most chat-based systems have these characteristics.)