No need to wonder where to go, what to see and how long the wait list lines are at the Sundance Film Festival. For the first time, the Festival is offering festival goers the ability to have a “virtual assistant” by their side at all times.
Through a partnership with ChaCha, the Sundance Film Festival will leverage ChaCha’s newly launched mobile text answers service whereby festival goers simply text any question to 242242 (ChaCha on a cell phone keypad) to get an answer from a knowledgeable person in minutes. It’s simple and it’s free. Questions can include, but are not limited to, film facts, “audience pulse” ratings, insider scoop of the Festival, restaurant information, party happenings, ticket availability, length of wait list lines or even “What shuttle can pick me up at the Library Theatre?”
“It’s like having a ‘virtual information booth’ in your hand. We’ve essentially created a way to have the Sundance Film Festival at your fingertips,” said ChaCha CEO Scott A. Jones. “With our team of people working around-the-clock as on-site scouts and with our close relationship with the organizers of the Sundance Film Festival, we’ll be able to give festival attendees 24/7 access to inside information not found anywhere else.”
Dynamic, relevant, real-time information is being gathered by up to 20 on-site Sundance Film Festival scouts and rapidly uploaded into the ChaCha database. One of ChaCha’s many guides can then quickly pull up this information to answer each question as it comes in.
Serving as the Official Text Answers Service of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, ChaCha is also providing festival attendees and non-attendees alike the ability to register to receive free “alert” text messages with the latest news, daily insider scoop, unique events, ski reports and more by signing up at www.chacha.com/sundance/alerts. Once registered, festival goers will receive two to four text messages per day with news ranging from ticket availability to ski reports. Individuals unable to attend Sundance can take advantage of a free daily Sundance Film Festival text containing a recap of the day’s highlights and major news stories. Members of the press and bloggers are also invited to register for the service to help them with their reporting.
“The atmosphere at the Sundance Film Festival is unlike anywhere else, and we think this service from ChaCha will further enhance the overall experience,” said Katie Kennedy, Associate Director of Corporate Development, Sundance Institute. “ChaCha’s ability to keep independent film lovers around the world updated on news from the Festival will also help spread the independent spirit beyond Park City.”
The Sundance Film Festival text service is an extension of ChaCha’s newly announced text service. ChaCha’s text service is available year-round from any U.S. mobile phone, currently as a free trial. Users can text questions to 242242 (ChaCha on a cell phone keypad) and receive answers texted back to them from live ChaCha guides. Because the questions are first viewed by human ChaCha guides, instead of by a computer system, every question – even if written in typical text slang – can be better understood and answered.
“During the development of our text service, we recognized how useful the service could be for a popular event like the Sundance Film Festival,” said Brad Bostic, president of ChaCha. “It’s a fantastic, 10-day testament to the power of the independent spirit, and ChaCha is very pleased to be a first-year Sundance Film Festival sponsor and provide a service that’s never before been offered to the Sundance Film Festival community.”
For more information about ChaCha, visit www.chacha.com.
About ChaCha
ChaCha’s newly announced mobile answers service allows users to text any question to 242242 (CHACHA on your mobile-phone keypad) and receive “the” answer within minutes! The questions are answered by skilled people – ChaCha guides - who are trained to use ChaCha’s powerful internal patent-pending search tools. Because there are humans involved, questions can be asked in any format, and text shortcuts, slang and misspellings can usually be deciphered. Created by serial entrepreneur Scott A. Jones (www.scottajones.com) and Brad Bostic (http://blog.bradbostic.com/), ChaCha is funded by Bezos Expeditions, the personal investment firm of Jeff Bezos; Morton Meyerson, former President and Vice Chairman of EDS as well as Chairman and CEO of Perot Systems; Rod Canion, founding CEO of Compaq Computer; and Jack Gill, legendary Silicon Valley venture capitalist. For more information, visit www.chacha.com.