I discovered this a while ago (Dec 18, 1999) and meant to fogo it
but never got around to it. It came up again over beer tonight, so:
keen.com: your live answer community
http://www.keen.com/
->
http://www.keen.com/documents/corpinfo/corpinfo.asp
> Keen.com[tm] is the Live Answer Community[tm], where people get
> answers to their questions over the phone. At Keen.com, people
> browse a directory of those who can answer their questions, click
> on the "Call Now" button and Keen.com connects them for a live
> phone call. Because Keen.com makes the calls, consumers' phone
> numbers and other personal information are never revealed. People
> who can answer questions on topics ranging from computers to
> personal advice to taxes can make money by creating a description
> of their knowledge and setting a per minute fee. Quality answers
> are ensured through Keen.com's consumer-based rating system and
> credential verification service.
:
When I saw this last December, it totally blew me away. (that is,
until my limited attention span shifted to something else.)
A few things that I remember occurring to me at the time:
- there are still a lot of good ideas for new web companies
out there
- this is so obvious, yet I never thought of it before
- I have a lot of specialized knowledge, I wonder if I could
charge $5/minute to tell others what I know over the phone
for an hour a day? (or all day for a day a week or something)
- how could using this service improve my work/life? If I'm
stuck on some stupid little software configuration problem,
isn't it worth my while to pay an expert a few bucks a minute
for a few minutes to help me?
A day or two later, it didn't seem like such a big deal any more.
It basically lets anyone create and advertise the equivalent of
a personal 1-900 number with very little overhead or risk.
Cool idea, and seems like fairly good execution.
--
Gerald Oskoboiny <
[email protected]>
http://impressive.net/people/gerald/