[[Skype an Expert]]:
A categorized real-time directory with experts who are online and available at any given time for a number of different topics. Some of them may offer their services for free, others may use PayPal. You could sort experts by price, by rating or by other criteria. The backend would have to use Skype’s API to detect whether registered users are online (is that possible?). It would be cool to also see if a given expert is taking another call, and for how long they have been doing so.
The website operating this social network could make money by mediating payments, or simply through advertising, directory placement, or a subscription model.
It would be an interesting challenge to outsource call center support to such a decentralized expert network. Those interested in doing so could offer information packages about their products to would-be supporters and get cheap or even free support staff from all over the planet. From a user’s point of view, the availability indicators and ratings would give additional transparency.
[[edit:Skype an Expert|Edit this idea!]]
November 10, 2005 at 2:50 am
Here is something kinda related that already exists:
http://answers.google.com/answers/
November 10, 2005 at 4:20 am
Related, but different. Google Answers is asynchronous, meaning that you post a question and generally wait several days for an answer. On the other hand, using a Skype-an-Expert system, you could get answers in real time (or not). This lends itself to very different problem sets, more of the “How do I do this?” variety than the “I need information about ..” type questions.
Secondly, Google Answers carefully screens their “researchers”. It’s not a simple “sign up and you’re ready” system. This is probably a main reason that it hasn’t scaled very well so far. Google also seems very shy about promoting it. I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole thing was taken down or made read-only at some point.
Thirdly, Google Answers is just that: answers to questions. While most of the time, you’d want answers when skyping someone, there’s no reason that the same system could not be used for, say, letting a trusted expert remotely administer one’s server.
November 10, 2005 at 8:32 am
Haha!
Some of the espians and related friends in london just started implementing something very similar.
Basically, you have a variety of phone numbers you can call/voip. This gets sent to a SIP-based platform where a number of experts are available.
Your call gets routed over VoIP based on your “domain” need and whoever is logged in.
Everything from personal secretary network to an outsourced call centre like you suggest would be possible on top of this.
The current ideas are to allow a tit-for-tat sort of model, e.g. you provide a few hours as an expert and in exchange you can use the time of others. But, the idea is to build in a nice payment system down the line.
Personally, I am looking forward to bundling this with plexchange.
Development is quite good. But, some more work needs to be done to get Asterisk out of the loop — which would be bring down infrastructure costs substantially — not that it’s not cheap enough already.
November 10, 2005 at 11:16 am
See http://www.ingenio.com for the same idea for cash payments over the PSTN.
It appears Ingenio was spun out from Keen.com. Keen’s been offering ‘instant experts over the phone’ for a while, but gradually came to be dominated by the magical/pseudoscience/superstitous ‘experts’ — so I think the primary motivator for Ingenio is to have a separate brand uncontaminated by that sort of thing.
This 2004 NYTimes article discusses the market a bit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/07/technology/07ecom.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5007&en=da1780cc0efcc0c0&ex=1402027200&adxnnl=1&partner=USERLAND&adxnnlx=1131617616-yQns0fwanFx0kk1Z4zFsOg
– Gordon