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.'"

The world is a better place but what about..

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.

Re:The world is a better place but what about..

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. ;)

Re:The world is a better place but what about..

It seems to me that this is quite like what has happened (and still might for all I know) for ages on IRC (back when people still knew IRC existed). When you wanted help on "topic" you /joined #topic and asked there (and hoped it wasn't populated with a bunch of morons that would mumble "RTFM", ignore you or just /kick you).

I know I helped quite a few people that way with HTML (back in the HTML 3.2 days) and Linux. The "bare ass" concept is interesting in that it should help avoid the worst of IRC.

OTOH it's true that for those who are really new to all of this Intarweb stuff, all of this talk of experts might be a bit confusing. They might not fully grasp that anyone might be an expert and that they're all just people giving a hand. This notion that people will do stuff like that for fun is often weird to people from the "Real World".
Maybe if they were listed as "good samaritans" or something... Well that's not great but you get the idea, at least it's less loaded...

Hmmm.....

www.NerdFriendFinder.com?

a little further information...

...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 [e-mail] 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.

Tech Chat

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.)

I wonder...

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.

Open Source Support Model

I think that this is an opportunity for people to quickly get help for a specific problem, but it REALLY depends upon the quality of the people on the other end of the line. It seems to me like an attempt at replacing the multitude of IRC channels that are out there to support all the open source projects. Another factor is that none of the solutions will be archived, which means that a google won't turn up solutions, which is the first place almost everybody goes when looking for a solution.

How do you avoid spam IMs?

"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!"

I'm not so sure...

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, rather than risking a complete stranger who could completely break your [whatever]. Also, I've always used tech support as just a required precursor to them replacing it under warrenty, as generally if the problem is fixable, Google is the only tool you need...

Still, I can see why it would be an advantage, although strictly for software based problems. Hardware problems? I'm not so sure it's a good idea getting someone else to tell you how to fix a peice of delicate machinary/hardware over IM, myself...

"Crowds are Wise" ?!?

Now, that's a stupid statement, even for someone in Marketing.

INDIVIDUALS are wise.

CROWDS are homicidal. Occasionally suicidal. But they are never 'wise.'

Thought about a similar service

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.

but!

pfft!!

RTFM n00b!!

You mean... like irc?

So, this is basically like your friendly open source IRC channel, for example as on freenode.net (or wherever your project of choice is located)? Talk about reinventing stuff...

Summery of the article

Hello, I re-invented Usenet.

Ok, Usenet does not have 1on1 real time conversation. It does have the advantage that you have many people looking at your problem and often hand you several solutions. There is a downside, you have to read this page [catb.org] first.

He's invented IRC.

It seems to me that some sort of "group chat" would be better at harnessing this Wisdom-of-Crowds stuff. Instead of just instant messaging one person to another, you could also provide a chat room - wait, I know, let's call them "channels"! And you can join them and ask questions and maybe learn something from the answers to others questions in the "message board community spirit" but in real time! We could call it Internet Relay Chat.

Take Freenode [freenode.net] - an IRC network dedicated to various sorts of community tech support (and, well, general community collaboration for sites like Wikipedia and such). A notable bias towards open-source projects and technologies, admittedly, but the same idea applies.

So what's Qunu got over IRC then? A fluffy little search-engine? :P

Filter option

connect up strangers who need tech support

I'd happily play tech support. However, a real boon would be a future to filter the requester of said support, based on certain characteristics.

Female *clicks radiobutton*
Blonde *checks box*
Age *selects barely legal*

That Wouldn't Help

After all, everyone on the Internet is female, blonde and barely legal. Hell I'm female, blonde and barely legal, too. Well... except I have a penis. And am 36. I do have big man boobs though, if that helps at all. Which, interestingly enough, is the exact description of every person on the Internet who claims to be female, blonde and barely legal. Well... anyone on the Internet who claims to be female. It's not so much that the Internet is populated entirely by men (Although it is) but rather that anyone who would actually fit that description is usually pretending to be a 36 year old dude with big man boobs.

Now that's sweet

Not only we can't avoid the n00b relatives mooching some free tech support, now we're going to have strangers doing the same? No thanks!

"Yeah, I'll help you with your problem ... "

"See that security setting there? Undo that and let me have remote admin access to your box. Thank you!"

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 ...

Didn't this exist in the 90s?

I seem to remember a little thing called IRC. Real time. Somewhat-forum-like.

Qunu search (help me with)

Qunu people should rethink the search semantics on the main page.
Currently it does an OR of all terms,
resulting in bad matches (people who sure are not able to help),
for users trying to specialize the search.

For "harnesses"

read "exploits".

Already exists...

Um it's called EFNet...

A Qunu "expert" speaks...

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.

Community Loss?

Although the idea seems nice - how about the loss to the greater community? If I have a specific problem with something and someone answers on a forum that answer is up on the internet for scores of other people to find.

Combining this with your every day support forum in some way, say logs are posted or a summary is written by one of the sides, makes sure that the knoweledge isn't lost and can be used by others later on. Because what happens if this expert was the only one with the right answer and he isn't around?

What about trolls?

That place looks like a prime target for those of the trolling variety. Desperate people seeking instant help are people who would more likely than not fall victim to downloading a 'patch' from people with either mischievous or malicious reasons.

Training Video for Help Desk Support.

No help desk or support site would be complete without a showing of the classic Internet Help Desk [deadtroll.com] to all employees/volunteers.

At last!

Someone has finally invented IRC.

No more EE?

Will this stop Google spitting up expert-exchange links on anything vaguely I.T. related that is searched for? That would be it's biggest drawcard if it was the case.

Quite annoying, really.

I'm sure I'm not alone in having called various 'support' numbers over the years and discovering that the caller knows far more about the subject than the call centre staff. Furthermore, basic troubleshooting skills are usually lacking, and simple thought processes seem to be a mountain to tall to climb for many of them.

p.s. It'd also be nice if it would render in Safari.

Unfortunately -

Anyone willing to provide free tech support for any length of time is unlikely to have any real-world experience at doing so. Or they're a masochist.

Re:wow, thats new

Well, sarcastic elitist bullshit wasn't an option.

Apologies.

Re:wow, thats new

thats absolutely nothing like what was going on in IRC since 198x

fixed...