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.'"

I wonder...

[vidarlo]

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.

Re:"Crowds are Wise" ?!?

[rhesuspieces00]

while I agree with you, I think what the OP meant was that crowds have a larger pool of knowledge and experience to draw from than one individual.

but they aren't very good at making decisions.

Re:I wonder...

[pedalman]

I think it is better to let people write good documentation for a product

Users actually taking the time to READ documentation? How quaint. What a silly goose you are.

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

[Fred_A]

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...

Re:a little further information...

[RobotRunAmok]

...if you'd like to be a Qunu expert

Actually I'd like to be just a plain ol' legitimate "expert." The bar to being a "Qunu expert" seems rather low...

Community Loss?

[nachmore]

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?