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ChaCha Mobile Search Explained

By Andrew Redfern @ 26th March 2008 10:20 am

Indianapolis-based ChaCha (http://www.chacha.com) has deepened its management team with veterans of Sprint Nextel and IBM joining its Business Development team and Board of Directors.

Cha Cha

The company’s business development strategy is now led by Jay Highley, Chief Business Development Officer, and Kevin Mazzatta, Vice President of Business Development. Highley and Mazzatta are responsible for creating partnerships that drive adoption of ChaCha’s unique mobile answers platform throughout the world.

“The additions of Jay and Kevin are accelerating our ability to demonstrate the value that ChaCha’s unprecedented search model brings to wireless carriers,” said ChaCha CEO Scott A. Jones.

“ChaCha’s mobile ‘answers’ service greatly enhances the mobile search experience for any cell phone user. Our pioneering service uses guides to answer questions that cell-phone users have, allowing any phone to be a super smart phone.

“With ChaCha, users don’t have to remember any special formatting or rules. Text shortcuts, misspellings and slang can easily be understood by ChaCha’s human guides. We are driving search usage on mobile phones and creating a true win-win situation for both carriers and users.”

Highley’s career spans more than 20 years in the telecom industry, in which he held a number of executive level assignments at Sprint, including Corporate Vice President of Marketing. He was also the President and CEO of Integrated Mobile, Inc., which was one of the fastest growing privately held companies in the United States.

Mazzatta, most recently a global solutions leader for IBM Global Technology Systems, brings more than 17 years of wireless experience to the position, ranging from strategic marketing and consulting to creating vertical solutions for Sprint PCS and GTE Wireless (now Verizon).

Prior to joining ChaCha, Mazzatta supervised growth planning and global strategy for IBM’s service businesses in the mobility, wireless, and RFID markets.

ChaCha’s board also was strengthened by the timely addition of Tom Kelly, formerly the Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Operating Officer of Nextel and then Sprint Nextel’s Chief Strategy Officer. Kelly will also serve in a consulting role for ChaCha, helping to position and scale ChaCha just as he successfully accomplished this with his groundbreaking services
in his previous roles at Nextel, AT&T, and Sprint Nextel.

Last year, ChaCha added Chris Brown, now its Chief Operating Officer, to its growing team of mobile industry veterans. Previously, Brown co-led all facets of the Sprint-Nextel Communications merger, one of the largest merger and integration efforts in U.S. history, and previously was Vice President of Customer Operations for Nextel.

Chris brings over 20 years of
wireless industry experience to ChaCha including eight years with Verizon Wireless prior to his varied executive assignments with Nextel. As Nextel’s Vice President of Customer Operations, Chris led the company’s Service Done
Right program (which garnered Nextel JD Powers No. 1 in Customer Satisfaction).

Jones, who invented today’s market-leading voicemail technology and who created Gracenote, the world’s most successful music identification company depended upon by Apple, Yahoo, Sony, and others, said, “Our mission with ChaCha is to create the best mobile search experience for consumers and a value-added search product for advertisers and carriers.

Our mobile-centric team will be integral in taking our brand to the next level.”

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