INDIANAPOLIS, IN ChaCha, the #1 free, real-time answers service, receives over 3 million questions and responses a day that provide a real-time look at what’s on the collective minds of a vast trendsetting online and mobile audience. ChaCha users’ 2010 leading question topics included an array of perennial favorites along with a few surprises.

The top overall question subjects for the year in review included Miley Cyrus, Justin Beiber, the world’s richest person, the world’s hottest woman and ways to say I love you in multiple languages. Questions about coupons were a dominant commerce category highlight. Not surprisingly, entertainment reigned supreme as the top overall category. The lifestyle and sports categories were ChaCha’s fastest growing.

A significant number of questions asked in ChaCha’s top category of entertainment were about Nicki Minaj, the Trinidadian-American hip hop recording artist; Demi Lovato, the American actress and singer and songwriter; Dot Jones, the actress who plays Glee’s gruff, but sensitive Coach Shannon Beiste; Emily Osment, who plays Hannah Montana; and the ubiquitous Lady Gaga. Questions about song lyrics also received high traffic with Eminem’s and Far East Movement’s Like a G6 being particularly popular. Hollywood movies also generated a lot of questions with the question What is the movie Inception about? spawning a lot of conversations and interactions online and on mobile phones.

Following entertainment, some other perennial favorite themes such as dating and relationships, makeup, and cutting-edge technologies like the iPad all topped the list with a few surprising new entrants such as South Park and the 20 hottest NFL cheerleaders.

ChaCha has now answered more than a billion questions from a youthful audience of technology influencers, and this engaged, interactive group proves remarkably consistent in their interests, says Scott Jones, ChaCha’s CEO. With the exception of dramatic shifts in questions that coincide with major breaking news and trending topics, especially in the world of entertainment, our users are focused day-to-day on their social, academic or professional lives (yes, we get lots of homework questions) and their favorite music and movies.

The uniqueness of the free, people-guided element that accompanies each of ChaCha’s answers naturally sparked a high degree of conversational inquiries as well. These friendly, playful interactions included the top question What is the meaning of life?

Other high-ranking questions were What is my name? and Who am I? or How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop? This highlights ChaCha’s remarkable mobile text and mobile web engagement, which has grown to be 400% that of the industry average according to comScore. ChaCha’s average user asks 16 questions per month on mobile alone.

As always, many thousands of user questions poured in about ChaCha’s service itself, including how to take advantage of cutting-edge new offerings such as mobile alerts and mobile coupons. Noticeably, unlike interactions with search engines, ChaCha receives personal interaction from its loyal and engaged users who are texting in Hello, Goodnight, Thank you, and U rock messages in response to answers from ChaCha’s 62,000 guides.

People come to ChaCha for answers about everything. In 2010, we had massive growth, with our monthly web traffic jumping from 17 million last January to over 29 million this month, states Mr. Jones. Now that we have added more topical and visual content to match user questions, creating a richer, more interactive experience online, our page views are north of 40 million every month and growing.

ChaCha (www.chacha.com) answers who, what, when, where and why, and has emerged as the No. 1 way for advertisers and marketers to engage teens and young adults. Through its unique ask-a-smart-friend platform, ChaCha has answered nearly one billion questions since launch from more than 21 million unique users per month via SMS text (242-242), online (http://www.chacha.com), Twitter (@chacha), Facebook app, iPhone app, Android app, and voice (1-800-2-ChaCha end_of_the_skype_highlighting). Working with major brands such as Paramount, AT&T, Palm, Johnson & Johnson, P&G, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Sonic, and presidential political campaigns, ChaCha.com is one of the fastest growing mobile and online publishers, according to Nielsen and Quantcast.

ChaCha was co-founded by proven innovator and entrepreneur Scott Jones and is funded by VantagePoint Venture Partners; Rho Ventures; Bezos Expeditions; 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; the Simon family; and Jack Gill, Silicon Valley venture capitalist.