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The Tech Support of the Crowds
professorhojo writes "News.com reports on an innovative new use for instant messaging, meant to connect up strangers who need tech support with experts in their field. From the article: 'In my experience, the best technical support on any product will come from somebody who actually uses and likes the product, not a paid support rep following a script ... If you can't wait for a response in a message board, you can try a new service, Qunu, which is trying to replicate the message board community spirit, but in real time. [It] connects you via instant message to an expert on the topic you need help with. We already know that crowds are wise. They're altruistic and they love to talk, too. Qunu harnesses that.'"
...if you'd like to be a Qunu expert and donate a support session or two, you can register using your Jabber-friendly IM client. There are a few easy ways into the system, depending on what client you have:
- Add quser@qunu.com to your roster, or
- Register with quser.alpha.qunu.com as a "service", or
- Add quser.alpha.qunu.com to your roster via a subscribe request
Request authorization from your new contact and it will start talking to you. You can talk to it, and tag yourself with your areas of expertise like this: "tags linux ubuntu gentoo cups kde". You'll then show up in Qunu results as an expert in those things. Any help requests will get routed straight thru to your IM client as an invitation you can accept or reject. Do unregister, simply unsubscribe from the Qunu contact.
Qunu linux support - think IM mashed with tagging and search.
My friend Tito tells me this is called 'IRC'. It's a quaint little service where people of all kinds of tech knowledge get together and 'chat' about things. If you're not a jerk, and you go to the right room, you can get on and ask about just about anything and get an answer.
I haven't used it personally. I can usually find more, and more precise information using Google, but it's helped Tito tremendously in the past when he was stuck on a systems issue.
I'm not sure labelling a chat 'tech support' will work any better, and I've a feeling it'll be worse. It'll draw the know-it-alls like flies, for instance. (These are people that have an answer for every question, whether or not they truly know what they are doing. Some do it for attention, some do it because they 'feel the need to return the help they got.' They're just a nuisance.)
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
I've been thinking about putting together a similar service for quite a long time. I've got a mixed reaction seeing this service, as it's not quite what I was envisioning. A few thoughts:
Using a 'standard' IM client may not be the best way - trying to do too much with 'tags' and what not instead of a dedicated/custom interface may not provide enough of a useful interface for helpers. I may be wrong tho - using just jabber opens up a lot of possibilities, and has reduced their dev time.
NOT allowing helpseekers to use IM doesn't seem right. This was always a big part I'd got stuck on in mapping something like this out. If you want to make it dead easy, let anyone use MSN/AIM/YAHOO/etc to post their questions immediately. Roundrobin those questions to another IM 'helper' until someone 'takes' the question.
Reputation - this would really be key to helping people determine whether the quality of the person they are getting help from is worthwhile or not.
Value - what benefit do I as a helpseeker get? One benefit I foresaw was revenue sharing - the more questions you'd answer, the more credits you'd earn, which would directly translate in to profit sharing based on whatever ads were run on the 'answer' site. By collecting all these Q&A, and publishing them, the system would be able to grow organically, and tossing adsense or something in there would give everyone a way to share in some money (just rotate people's adsense code in the site - don't try to collect and parcel out money directly - too much work).
If the resulting Q&A database was 'open' in the sense of publishing under a GPL or similar license, this would be a great service. If people are donating all their free time to add to a closed database without the chance of being able to use it themselves for whatever purpose, this isn't such a great service.
creation science book
Hi Olivier,
;-)
;)
1) remember that Qunu is still 'alpha', so there are lots of 'things' that haven't been addressed, the persistence of chats being one of them.
2) Qunu isn't for everyone, that's for sure, but for those _require_ an instant answer. If you don't mind waiting for hours, forums and emails are fine, but if you need a reply right now, they aren't.
3) It may not be obvious, but Qunu isn't just for tech support. For various reasons we've chosen to start there, but that's about it.
4) Experts are on Qunu simply because they want to provide instant help to others. Other than forums, the requests come to you, and with your presence you decide exactly when you are available. This will be fine-tuned as we go along.
5) We're aware of the French 'translation', which I personally find rather hilarious! I guess unless you have a really obscure name, there's always a chance that it sounds funny in some language. We're happy to live with the 'bare ass' for now - it's up for each one to decide if they're the one wanting to be spanked or doing the spanking. Most will probably just watch - in true French tradition
6) "... how this would appeal to anybody else than the ones seeking help." Well, that you have to ask the over 1300 experts that are already signed up. Over 6000 help sessions donated in what clearly is an alpha test period speaks for itself. It may be worth remembering that we've put time and money into a concept that we're testing in IT at the moment. It may fail there - although I doubt it will - but IT isn't the world. And that's what we're after, so stay tuned and perhaps enjoy the ride with us. It's been great so far!
7) Qunu is free for now, and it always will be, but this doesn't mean that soon Experts won't be able to bid for 'business' that cannot be done in a quick chat. Take that outside tech support and your eyes may open up REALLY wide.
James Surowiecki would disagree with you; you may be interested to read his book, "The Wisdom of Crowds."
s /
http://www.randomhouse.com/features/wisdomofcrowd
... that the majority of those requiring help don't even know what IRC is, never mind how to get onto it in order to ask a question.
Qunu, OTOH, can be deployed on an infinite amount of servers for an infinite amount of services, and the person requiring help doesn't have to know zip about the technology driving the thing. That's probably the biggest advantage of Qunu.
Plus, and watch this space, the method we've chosen opens up a whole new field of expert services that aren't 'free'. IRC can't do that.
I would have thought there's a certain reassurance in knowing there's a certain guaranteed level knowledge that the guys in tech support have
Very true, i've met many a "guru" who didn't really now much about what they bragged about and were doing tech support for people who knew less. In one such instance a man who labelled himself, verbally and in resume, a guru of TCP/IP with the extent of that knowledge being that TCP/IP makes use of different ports, not even common default port knowledge, no routing, no subnetting, no hardware level knowledge (didn't know the difference between a hub and a switch).
Phone in tech support may be a bitch sometimes, but generally if you don't like the tech your talking to ask for another one or ask to speak to a supervisor and get a tech delegated that can handle your issue. random strangers sounds nice for little things like configuring your email or telling you the difference between http and https, but not for fixing things, who knows what they will do or what backdoor they may install to "help" you.
I signed up to volunteer on Qunu a month or so ago, when I saw the service going alpha on Digg.
Qunu is an interesting concept, and I think slashdotters should go to the site and sign up to be experts.
I use a special jabber account on gaim that I created on the qunu server, that I only logon to when I am in the mood to volunteer my time. I created a profile that explains what I am willing to help with.
So far, I have helped an Ubuntu newbie trouble shoot an install problem and then fix his screen resolution and helped a Windows user encrypt some files. It was a good feeling to help out.
Note that the help interface does not require the user to have a jabber client, but only access to the web.
The problem with live tech support like this is that it is very draining on the volunteer expert. It is like a real job. Too much handholding is involved. I'd rather give tech support over email.
Our ranking system shows those experts at the top who were fast in replying and got good ratings from users. This doesn't mean you get the right person first time, but that's life.
Also, aggregate answers as you call them will come the moment we're making the answers permanent - whichever model we'll be eventually choose for this.
There are - obviously - limitations to the way we've implemented this service, but in the vast majority of cases it's the initial contact that counts, and if a trust relationship builds, nothing prevents anyone from taking this off Qunu, which at that time has more than served its purpose.