Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
Liability/support (for the one seeking help) and compensation for the one helping?
If somebody gets some good advice, and later needs to build something on what was already done, won't he need to explain to however is now the selected expert at Qunu what his problem is/was, what the Qunu expert helped him achieve etc.. Basically this guy will have no client file/historical so that whoever comes in later can pick it up from there.
What happens if the next expert dissagrees with what the previous expert said to be done? The one seeking assistance will be confused as hell!
Also what happens when the advice received causes a problem downstream, who's gonna get the end-user out of his misery?
On the other side, experts don't mind helping out on forum boards, and I think that the thing that makes this cooperation possible is that there is no one-to-one relationship, experts won't be necessarily reading the board all the time nor will they need to answer something they don't like/want to answer. Also they choose when they wnat ot respond.
With IM you are dictacted what problem (within a given field I concede), who you answer to and you are compelled to answer (we all know it is impossible to resist talking to somebody on IM, whereas emaied responses can more easily be delayed).
The other problem is that you won't be using this while at work (not if you are honest with your employer), nor will you want to sit at home waiting for somebody to ring you; imagine this is like doing helpdesk support on the WE in your spare time, for zit, nada! ouch.
For all this added stress/difficulty, what does the expert get? Nothing besides gratitude as far as I can tell.
All in all I think that this is a bad idea for anything else than a casual "how do you remove red-eyes in Picasa", "or what do I need to open *.rar files".
Guys please tell me how this would appeal to anybody else than the ones seeking help.
Btw; Qunu sound exactly like "cul nu" in French which means bare-ass. Funny translation I know but makes me think that's what ones seeking help are in for if things go sour.
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity
Will anyone do tech support for free? Sure, I might reply in irc channels and mailing lists, but not in Instant Messaging. The thing with irc and mailing lists is that there is a chance that other people will get the answer, and look at it, and learn. By using a closed, 1-to-1 protocol like IM, you offset this. I think it is better to let people write good documentation for a product, than to let others provide tech support.
Tech support is mostly called by idiots anyway, and I'd not manage to answer politely to stupid questions.
Assembling etherkillers for fun an profit
"I'll accept IMs from anybody who needs help with issue XYZ."
"Hello, my name is Honeypot. I have issue XYZ, and I'm a hot, horny 21-year old blonde with big boobs. I'm just sooo grateful for your help. Click here to make a date with me so I can thank you properly!"
To err is human. To forgive is good system design.
Now, that's a stupid statement, even for someone in Marketing.
INDIVIDUALS are wise.
CROWDS are homicidal. Occasionally suicidal. But they are never 'wise.'
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
It's bad enough that a Windows can be vulnerable if not properly secure, but what if someone convinces a user of this service to open up their machine (any OS, mind you)?
And before you ask, no, I didn't RTFA. I'll go do that now and see what they say about those concerns ...
I talk about stuff.
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.