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Helpouts by Google

190 points by GFuller 13y ago

marknutter 13y ago
I had the same idea when Apple's Facetime came out. I thought it might be feasible to build a business around video-chatting with experts around the world, but then Apple reneged on the openness of the Facetime platform. Good luck to Google, I think it's an idea that has merit.
Peroni 13y ago
Interesting. I'm surprised the categories listed are so vague. I partly expected it to be tech orientated.
cloudwalking 13y ago
Aardvark 2.0 ?
- nine_k 13y ago
  On Aardvark there was no way (I knew of) to pay for answers. I was pretty sad when Google bought and closed Aardvark. If they somehow resurrect it in this form, maybe its death was not in vain :)
rdl 13y ago
I remember ~5 years ago when Skype offered this, with integrated payment. It got used mainly for video phone sex and was quietly abandoned, IIRC (very imperfect memory on this, and never used the service myself).
- john-dova 13y ago
  I'm sure this will be clean out by next Spring ;)
- jbmartin 13y ago
  I wonder if there's a more general issue with public video services getting abused by adult content. Interesting to see how (if?) Google deals with this problem...
  - __alexs 13y ago
    How is it abuse exactly? Live consenting naked people in exchange for money is not illegal in much of the world.
    - gizzlon 13y ago
      Guess if you try to get help fixing your bike and get a big penis :)
  - Flenser 13y ago
    It's possible that by vetting the initial users they can create a community that would self police any abuse.
- bentcorner 13y ago
  I think this should be some sort of internet law. It's happened to other platforms, and it'll happen again. I'd be interested to see what Google is doing to prevent this from happening (or if they would embrace it at arms length). "Should thou ever integrate video with a payment system, thou shalt be sundered full of naked bodies"
  - niuzeta 13y ago
    this should be as one of ten commandments of internet.
- r00fus 13y ago
  And people wondered why Jobs was so against anything pornographic on the AppStore. The issue isn't that sex-based services are bad, it's that when they eclipse other uses of the product, the reputation is set. Add to that the generally puritanical nature of most societies with regards to sex services, and the rampant potential of abuse with regards to sex workers, and you have a good incentive for companies to avoid/deny those usages. Even though craigslist was a great boon for sex workers in the cities it operated in, it pissed off the establishment and now it's not nearly as discoverable as it used to be.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
polemic 13y ago
Anyone else thing this is ironic coming from Google, a company notoriously difficult to get assistance with their own products?
- adcoelho 13y ago
  At first I thought it would be something related with a revision of their customer service. Oh well, not today.
  - martinwnet 13y ago
    I genuinely thought it might be April.
    - pencilcode 13y ago
      me too! "let's put more arrows behind fewer projects tra la la", so they shut down an rss service and then open up something like this.. a bit off.
- midko 13y ago
  No. (Haven't we filled the whine-quota about Google for this month yet?) Here's a more civil answer that does not convey what I think such whines should be treated with here. No, I don't find it ironical. In fact, I think it's great precisely because they have bad customer support. It means they recognize such problems and do want to improve things (sure, maybe with profit in mind. What's wrong with that). Yes, helpouts does not change their customer support the slightest bit. But how much of an issue is it for non-tech people, compared to any other kind of expert help one may need, ? Look outside the tech bubble for a second. I quite agree with kolya3's comment. It's safe to say that part of the reason why Google has such a notoriously bad customer support is the scale at which they operate. And what do they do? They solve a much bigger problem with precisely this same scale. Isn't that at the very core of what Google does, is about, is?! For good and bad, Google == scale. So no, I don't find it ironical. I think it is exactly the kind of thing they should do. It doesn't matter if this works or not, does not matter if it's killed in 6 months or not, it does not matter if the NSA sees that a guy showed you how to flip pizza dough in the air. It is precisely the kind of attitude they should have. Last thing. I look at the comments in this thread and it's bitter negativity all the way down. Can seriously none of you see any value in this?! None of you, members and readers of this community about STARTUPS see any business opportunity here?! A chance to create value and grow?! And no, just because it may get killed soon does not immediately mean such opportunity should be ignored. For a niche business leveraging Google's userbase even for a month can mean massive growth. If the service dies, so what, your new clients already know you exist and (hopefully) satisfied with your work.
JacobAldridge 13y ago
Reminds me of Minutebox - it looks like founder Josh Liu (great guy - I met him in London a few years ago) has moved on, and while the website no longer exist this scathing TechCrunch analysis of the concept (from 2008) still does - http://techcrunch.com/2008/05/20/minutebox-does-not-box-clever/ http://techcrunch.com/2008/05/20/minutebox-does-not-box-clev... How will the 'Google' factor impact / advance the business concept?
dodyg 13y ago
Somebody please start the cancellation countdown clock.
- lukedjn 13y ago
  I agree. The fact that I'm signed in with my Google account and it still asks me for my name and e-mail address makes me think this isn't (going to be) a serious part of Google, it seems very much like a 20% project that slipped through.
  - dodyg 13y ago
    If you are Google now, you don't get to ask people to show 'interest'. Open it up already and have people try it. Don't monkey around.
- marijn 13y ago
  My thought process went something like 'That's cute. Should I bother? Guess not—it's Google, very unlikely to last long.' Seems they may have a reputation problem.
- est 13y ago
  Yeah, especially it't not released as some addon to G+, so it might likely to be shutdown in next few months.
losethos 13y ago
Get God's help. ---- Virtual-Notary.Org hereby notes that on Date: Wednesday August 21, 2013 04:53.11 EDT (UTC-0400) a random drawing in the range [1, 100000], inclusive, based on a hardware source of true randomness, yielded the following decision. Random Value: 32897 ---- and said, Behold, if the LORD would make windows in heaven, might this thing be? And he said, Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof. 7:3 And there were four leprous men at the entering in of the gate: and they said one to another, Why sit we here until we die? 7:4 If we say, We will enter into the city, then the famine is in the city, and we shall die there: and if we sit still here, we die also. Now therefore come, and let us fall unto the host of the Syrians: if they save us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall but die. 7:5 And they rose up in the twilight, to go unto the camp of the Syrians: and when they were come to the uttermost part of the camp of Syria, behold, there was no man there. 7:6 For the LORD had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host: and they said one to another, Lo, the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us. 7:7 Wherefore they arose and fled in the twilight, and left their tents, and their horses, and their asses, even the camp as it was, and fled for their life. ---- I'm leper messiah? What do You think, God? God says... absetively_posilutely Church have_fun cowardice manufacturing stunning segway small_talk mission_from_God nasty drama hang_in_there act you_hoser clever skills outrageous nope crazy I_could_be_wrong Church begs_the_question segway chill I_quit cracks_me_up perfect Mom don't_worry mission_from_God service_sector Jesus
pella 13y ago
http://thenextweb.com/google/2013/07/25/google-reportedly-working-on-helpouts-a-marketplace-for-sharing-skills-over-live-video/ http://thenextweb.com/google/2013/07/25/google-reportedly-wo...
gonvaled 13y ago
- Are the helpouts NSA approved? - Will I get in trouble depending on which people I want to help? - Will I get in trouble depending on what activities are the people I help involved into? No, thanks.
- hahainternet 13y ago
  Could you try any harder to smash two unrelated stories together?
  - gonvaled 13y ago
    You do not get it, do you? A couple of months ago, the default was "I trust this company, unless I have evidence of the contrary". Now the default has radically changed: "I do not trust this company, unless I have very strong evidence of the contrary; and even then, I might not trust them, because they could be forced to lie" So the internet is now a medium without trust. The less I do there, the better.
    - hahainternet 13y ago
      > A couple of months ago, the default was "I trust this company, unless I have evidence of the contrary". Now the default has radically changed: You should probably talk to a professional about this. Distrusting everyone is paranoia and a dangerous attitude.
      - gonvaled 13y ago
        "It is not paranoia if they really are out to get you" But I'll take your advice and visit my psychiatrist. In the meantime, no google helpouts for me. I mean, I can probably pass on this one. And on the next one. Why take any risks?
        hahainternet 13y ago
        > Why take any risks? Why leave the house at all? Everything has risks, but it sounded like you were being quite paranoid and I meant what I said with a kind heart.
user24 13y ago
Sorry Google. You've lost my enthusiasm. Why would I invest the time into learning how this works, trying to become part of the community etc when I can be pretty sure that they're just going to shut it down in a few years time?
- kolya3 13y ago
  You and I are both in the HN bubble. We expect Google to kill products and Google doesn't expect us to "become part of the community." We are not the market. However, the general consumer, the one this is aimed at, loves Google. Their experience is with the search box and maybe Gmail both of which serve consumer needs perfectly. Consumers don't remember or know Reader and every other app Google killed so their reaction to this product will be different.
  - mattmanser 13y ago
    New tech like this needs early adopters, which is us.
    - user24 13y ago
      and we are the people that non-techies ask about which services to use.
    - kolya3 13y ago
      I think you are right when it comes to a product like Google docs - it's complicated enough that a consumer would look to the early adopters. However, this Helpouts product is simple enough for a consumer to understand that they dont need to ask their technically minded friends whether they should use it. All Google has to do to bring the users in is include a link to it on the search results page. "Were you looking advice on yoga? Click here to talk to a real person."
    - MarcScott 13y ago
      If Google is sensible then it'll exclude "us" from being early adopters. In the early days of Google+ trying to find anyone on the newly formed social network that wasn't part of the tech community was impossible. If we become the early adopters then all this will be good for is advice for setting up a VPS and debugging javascript. I doubt they're trying to create the world's largest IT support system.
est 13y ago
I am interested how would customer, provider and Google handle VATs. This could go wrong in so many ways.
- Jyaif 13y ago
  Isn't that the same problem as selling android apps?
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- BitMastro 13y ago
  What do you mean by technology? I think it's basically hangouts with money exchange. Very similar to how freelancing websites work
Brajeshwar 13y ago
Oh! I double-checked if I'm back in the past in Aug, 20013 and not in the real world where Google just announced Helpouts on Apr 1, 2014. I'm sorry but the name sounded such.
bugmen0t 13y ago
There's a pluggable no-login audio-version of this already present today: Mozilla's TowTruck: https://towtruck.mozillalabs.com/ https://towtruck.mozillalabs.com/
hrktb 13y ago
This would need enormous amount of human time for moderation, user support and general community management. I wonder how it went on these fronts for Google+. I don't use it actively, and from my own echo chamber not many people seem to be using it, so not a good data point. For now, the only effort in this kind of product that work well seems to be Yahoo answers. It would be interesting to see the details of what Google is up to.
ahk 13y ago
Looks like a broader version of the 7 Cups of Tea service. Weird how these things come out nearly at the same time.
keefebowl 13y ago
Looks a lot like http://www.liveninja.com http://www.liveninja.com
wolfden 13y ago
I think this isn't meant to be just a service on its own. It's something that will only come to life when Glass is out. I stumbled upon this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYJuCZr67VE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYJuCZr67VE and now believe that this format is going to be wonderful for anyone trying to learn things. Google building in a backbone platform for it makes it all the better.
- patrickaljord 13y ago
  Thanks for being the only on-topic, interesting comment of the whole thread. This is really depressing. And yes, I think this could be really great with Google Glass, especially for medical stuff or cooking.
downandout 13y ago
I think Google will be shocked at how little usage this gets. Having founded a couple of ventures aimed at helping people make money online, I can conclusively say that it is much easier, for example, to convince someone to play a casual game online and waste their time than to convince them to join a site where they may be paid for their time. For whatever reason, it is incredibly difficult to get talented people interested in new ways to connect with people that will pay for those talents.
- gz5 13y ago
  Very difficult but will Google put this in front of enough people, enough times, in enough different ways to build a tangible niche? Google different than most of us in that they don't need to directly make money from this effort. The WebRTC analytics generated alone are likely enough to justify the costs.
- bleakcabal 13y ago
  Sometimes you just want/need to unwind and do something else even if you could be making a little more money. Also doing paid stuff outside of work can feel like more work, wasted time might be necessary recreation time.
- pappyo 13y ago
  Yeah, and their pricing model isn't helping them either. It's a tough sell to get professional experts to hand over almost a quarter of their earnings before the taxman cometh. Maybe if Google didn't fail pricing 101, they'd know something like 18.25% is more palatable to a consumer than a big round number like 20.
  - japhyr 13y ago
    Do you have any sense what a reasonable fee would be? I am a math teacher, and I've seen math teachers make $80+/hr tutoring high school and college students. I'd consider trying this platform out, because it would take little effort to get started, and I'd have nothing to lose. I'd be a little frustrated to see Google take 20% right off the top. But I am assuming that Google has the infrastructure to roll this out without needing to take 20% to maintain profitability on this. Does anyone have a sense of a reasonable fee for this service?
oellegaard 13y ago
No thanks, I'd rather not tell Google more that can help them sell me targeted ads, which they conveniently insert in my inbox, looking like real e-mail.
- andybak 13y ago
  and the Most Predictable Criticism of Google award goes to...
marcin 13y ago
With the Youtube audience, this could nicely turn into new stream of live shows/reality TV where everyone can participate.
daniel_iversen 13y ago
When Google acquired and kills of such a similar thing and as awesome and universally useful and (hopefully/seamingly) altruistic initiative as Aardvark (vark.com) was, why do we believe that this new "Helpouts" will stick around and people should invest time and energy in contributing to it?
ck2 13y ago
My first thought "what could possibly go wrong with live 1-to-1 video".
unz 13y ago
This is amazing. Google will really do well with this, they need to branch into ecommerce as their ad business isn't growing much. With mobile gaining traction, this could be a central hub for a decentralized solopreneur economy, even inside corporations. You can consult your lawyer, accountant, doctor, pharmacist right from your tablet and be charged through this interface. Even better, your lawyer/doctor etc. is based in india and charge a 10th of the cost. Also, great to watch and charge babysitters, mechanics, cleaners etc. Also, supervising factory workers in china. The factory has telecommute robot for rent floating around and you log in and do some checking on your product being produced. If google record and analyze the videos, they could even run some machine learning on this and turn into automated robots that carry out the task. Great idea, an app store for people peddling that could turn into an artificial intelligence robot.
- RDeckard 13y ago
  Didn't they already have a similar service (similar to Yahoo Answers, but I forget the name), where people got paid to answer other people's questions? Only for the service to be shutdown some years later. Anyone remember the name?
  - gummydude 13y ago
    Google Answers. lol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Answers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Answers
  - unz 13y ago
    The problem with that was that you can just type stuff into google and search it yourself (google answers). The alternative is a few minutes of typing. This is different, it's for physical work monitoring, and where real time face to face interaction is valued. Alternatives to this are get in a car, rent an office, get on a plane.
  - nvarsj 13y ago
    Google answers was awesome, probably the service I miss the most from Google. It was a lot like the stack*.com sites these days, but generally higher quality as people paid for answers.
abrahamsen 13y ago
I guess the 20% projects are not quite dead yet. It very much looks like something created by one or more enthusiastic employees, and not a strategic move mandated from above. Yes, there is a better than even chance that this will go nowhere like knoll, but could we please give it a chance to prove itself before shutting it down?
kmfrk 13y ago
This could be a trial balloon to see whether people would want to use Google Glass for something like this.
emhart 13y ago
I signed up. My main skill is opening/troubleshooting locks, and I think it would be an interesting experiment to see, A. if they would allow me to be a helper, and B. to test my efficacy as a digital locksmith. I've successfully had vicarious openings via both voice & text, so video seems like it would be even better. I have no opinion on whether or not this should exist, whether google will shut it down, whether it will be effective, etc.
- alan_cx 13y ago
  I hope you never accidentally advise a criminal and get metadata linked to a crime.
  - emhart 13y ago
    I'm actually very curious about that sort of thing which is why I find A particularly interesting. My assumption is that Google would just avoid the headache altogether, but one of the rarely spoken truths about teaching physical security is that your students may have malicious intent. You apply whatever social screening you can, but at the end of the day, bad people exist and some pass pretty well for good people. When doing a proper lockout I can take IDs, have people sign things, etc. all of which have (in general, not in my personal experience) failed on one level or another and the modern history of locksmithing is rife with tragic stories of locksmiths unwittingly helping absolutely terrible people. Some means of identification/authentication would certainly be possible with Helpers, but again, I cannot imagine Google would engage in the headache of adding that layer.
planetjones 13y ago
I don't what others' experience of Google Hangouts is, but mine is poor quality and frustration. Maybe that's caused by network connectivity, which device is being used, etc. Not that it's much better on skype... I am not sure if the concept of getting paid for help via Hangouts is something the technology is reliable or high enough quality for at the moment. My prediction: this is just a gimmick which will go the way of Google Wave
appleflaxen 13y ago
This would look really interesting if it weren't Google. Why do I want to invest my time, energy, and effort into creating their content. Even if I get paid for my time, I get no "warm fuzzy" feeling of goodwill, because Google is the middle man.
lnanek2 13y ago
Joel Spolsky's help company did quite well. Not sure Google is technically capable of pulling this off, though. Was trying to use Hangouts all last weekend and half the people in the hangout couldn't get messages no matter what. The half we did get working involved bizarre dances of everyone going to each other's page to say hi before messages magically started coming through. All were shown as in the hangout, though. They threw out a good working system in Google Talk that even had people contacting me from other chat clients and platforms, like iPhone. Now they can't even get chatting inside their own platform working. I'm sure any effort by engineers to get this working would just immediately by quashed by the useless biz guys who control Google now.
misnome 13y ago
Sounds interesting. I can see a potential usage in remote tutoring. Parents set up their kids, who don't understand something, and use it to speak to someone qualified (you could have pre-approved lists or groups of people). And by virtue of being google, it has a large potential audience. The potential for abuse would have to be carefully monitored/considered, of course.
yesplorer 13y ago
I don't understand Google. They are closing down most projects, including those that have traction because, according to Larry Page, the want to rally around core projects. If that is the case why this? All this is going to do is kill the motivation of freelancing sites because the dinosaur has entered the room and definitely kill some of them. Yet I doubt they are going to be that of a big player in that niche. sigh
johnx123-up 13y ago
Looking similar to http://ace.dev.agriya.com/ http://ace.dev.agriya.com/
scragg 13y ago
If only ISPs would offer an upstream worth a damn, video streaming would be much more fun.
mithaler 13y ago
I still remember using Aardvark, which got shut down shortly after Google acquired it. This seems to be similar. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aardvark_(search_engine) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aardvark_(search_engine)
webwanderings 13y ago
I need help changing my kitchen faucet. My options are: a) DIY, b) arrange proportionally large amount of cash and call the professional help. Am I going to use Google as my option C? I really doubt, because there is a good chance Google will be arranging the same option B above. So what is the point?
rebelidealist 13y ago
Which division at Google is in charge of deciding what new projects to start? I'm wondering since the 20% time is gone.

190 points by GFuller 13y ago

I had the same idea when Apple's Facetime came out. I thought it might be feasible to build a business around video-chatting with experts around the world, but then Apple reneged on the openness of the Facetime platform. Good luck to Google, I think it's an idea that has merit.

Peroni 13y ago

Interesting. I'm surprised the categories listed are so vague. I partly expected it to be tech orientated.

cloudwalking 13y ago

Aardvark 2.0 ?

nine_k 13y ago
On Aardvark there was no way (I knew of) to pay for answers. I was pretty sad when Google bought and closed Aardvark. If they somehow resurrect it in this form, maybe its death was not in vain :)

rdl 13y ago

I remember ~5 years ago when Skype offered this, with integrated payment. It got used mainly for video phone sex and was quietly abandoned, IIRC (very imperfect memory on this, and never used the service myself).

john-dova 13y ago
I'm sure this will be clean out by next Spring ;)
jbmartin 13y ago
I wonder if there's a more general issue with public video services getting abused by adult content. Interesting to see how (if?) Google deals with this problem...
- __alexs 13y ago
  How is it abuse exactly? Live consenting naked people in exchange for money is not illegal in much of the world.
  - gizzlon 13y ago
    Guess if you try to get help fixing your bike and get a big penis :)
- Flenser 13y ago
  It's possible that by vetting the initial users they can create a community that would self police any abuse.
bentcorner 13y ago
I think this should be some sort of internet law. It's happened to other platforms, and it'll happen again. I'd be interested to see what Google is doing to prevent this from happening (or if they would embrace it at arms length). "Should thou ever integrate video with a payment system, thou shalt be sundered full of naked bodies"
- niuzeta 13y ago
  this should be as one of ten commandments of internet.
r00fus 13y ago
And people wondered why Jobs was so against anything pornographic on the AppStore. The issue isn't that sex-based services are bad, it's that when they eclipse other uses of the product, the reputation is set. Add to that the generally puritanical nature of most societies with regards to sex services, and the rampant potential of abuse with regards to sex workers, and you have a good incentive for companies to avoid/deny those usages. Even though craigslist was a great boon for sex workers in the cities it operated in, it pissed off the establishment and now it's not nearly as discoverable as it used to be.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

polemic 13y ago

Anyone else thing this is ironic coming from Google, a company notoriously difficult to get assistance with their own products?

adcoelho 13y ago
At first I thought it would be something related with a revision of their customer service. Oh well, not today.
- martinwnet 13y ago
  I genuinely thought it might be April.
  - pencilcode 13y ago
    me too! "let's put more arrows behind fewer projects tra la la", so they shut down an rss service and then open up something like this.. a bit off.
midko 13y ago
No. (Haven't we filled the whine-quota about Google for this month yet?) Here's a more civil answer that does not convey what I think such whines should be treated with here. No, I don't find it ironical. In fact, I think it's great precisely because they have bad customer support. It means they recognize such problems and do want to improve things (sure, maybe with profit in mind. What's wrong with that). Yes, helpouts does not change their customer support the slightest bit. But how much of an issue is it for non-tech people, compared to any other kind of expert help one may need, ? Look outside the tech bubble for a second. I quite agree with kolya3's comment. It's safe to say that part of the reason why Google has such a notoriously bad customer support is the scale at which they operate. And what do they do? They solve a much bigger problem with precisely this same scale. Isn't that at the very core of what Google does, is about, is?! For good and bad, Google == scale. So no, I don't find it ironical. I think it is exactly the kind of thing they should do. It doesn't matter if this works or not, does not matter if it's killed in 6 months or not, it does not matter if the NSA sees that a guy showed you how to flip pizza dough in the air. It is precisely the kind of attitude they should have. Last thing. I look at the comments in this thread and it's bitter negativity all the way down. Can seriously none of you see any value in this?! None of you, members and readers of this community about STARTUPS see any business opportunity here?! A chance to create value and grow?! And no, just because it may get killed soon does not immediately mean such opportunity should be ignored. For a niche business leveraging Google's userbase even for a month can mean massive growth. If the service dies, so what, your new clients already know you exist and (hopefully) satisfied with your work.

JacobAldridge 13y ago

Reminds me of Minutebox - it looks like founder Josh Liu (great guy - I met him in London a few years ago) has moved on, and while the website no longer exist this scathing TechCrunch analysis of the concept (from 2008) still does - http://techcrunch.com/2008/05/20/minutebox-does-not-box-clever/ http://techcrunch.com/2008/05/20/minutebox-does-not-box-clev... How will the 'Google' factor impact / advance the business concept?

dodyg 13y ago

Somebody please start the cancellation countdown clock.

lukedjn 13y ago
I agree. The fact that I'm signed in with my Google account and it still asks me for my name and e-mail address makes me think this isn't (going to be) a serious part of Google, it seems very much like a 20% project that slipped through.
- dodyg 13y ago
  If you are Google now, you don't get to ask people to show 'interest'. Open it up already and have people try it. Don't monkey around.
marijn 13y ago
My thought process went something like 'That's cute. Should I bother? Guess not—it's Google, very unlikely to last long.' Seems they may have a reputation problem.
est 13y ago
Yeah, especially it't not released as some addon to G+, so it might likely to be shutdown in next few months.

losethos 13y ago

Get God's help. ---- Virtual-Notary.Org hereby notes that on Date: Wednesday August 21, 2013 04:53.11 EDT (UTC-0400) a random drawing in the range [1, 100000], inclusive, based on a hardware source of true randomness, yielded the following decision. Random Value: 32897 ---- and said, Behold, if the LORD would make windows in heaven, might this thing be? And he said, Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof. 7:3 And there were four leprous men at the entering in of the gate: and they said one to another, Why sit we here until we die? 7:4 If we say, We will enter into the city, then the famine is in the city, and we shall die there: and if we sit still here, we die also. Now therefore come, and let us fall unto the host of the Syrians: if they save us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall but die. 7:5 And they rose up in the twilight, to go unto the camp of the Syrians: and when they were come to the uttermost part of the camp of Syria, behold, there was no man there. 7:6 For the LORD had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host: and they said one to another, Lo, the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us. 7:7 Wherefore they arose and fled in the twilight, and left their tents, and their horses, and their asses, even the camp as it was, and fled for their life. ---- I'm leper messiah? What do You think, God? God says... absetively_posilutely Church have_fun cowardice manufacturing stunning segway small_talk mission_from_God nasty drama hang_in_there act you_hoser clever skills outrageous nope crazy I_could_be_wrong Church begs_the_question segway chill I_quit cracks_me_up perfect Mom don't_worry mission_from_God service_sector Jesus

pella 13y ago

http://thenextweb.com/google/2013/07/25/google-reportedly-working-on-helpouts-a-marketplace-for-sharing-skills-over-live-video/ http://thenextweb.com/google/2013/07/25/google-reportedly-wo...

gonvaled 13y ago

- Are the helpouts NSA approved? - Will I get in trouble depending on which people I want to help? - Will I get in trouble depending on what activities are the people I help involved into? No, thanks.

hahainternet 13y ago
Could you try any harder to smash two unrelated stories together?
- gonvaled 13y ago
  You do not get it, do you? A couple of months ago, the default was "I trust this company, unless I have evidence of the contrary". Now the default has radically changed: "I do not trust this company, unless I have very strong evidence of the contrary; and even then, I might not trust them, because they could be forced to lie" So the internet is now a medium without trust. The less I do there, the better.
  - hahainternet 13y ago
    > A couple of months ago, the default was "I trust this company, unless I have evidence of the contrary". Now the default has radically changed: You should probably talk to a professional about this. Distrusting everyone is paranoia and a dangerous attitude.
    - gonvaled 13y ago
      "It is not paranoia if they really are out to get you" But I'll take your advice and visit my psychiatrist. In the meantime, no google helpouts for me. I mean, I can probably pass on this one. And on the next one. Why take any risks?
      - hahainternet 13y ago
        > Why take any risks? Why leave the house at all? Everything has risks, but it sounded like you were being quite paranoid and I meant what I said with a kind heart.

user24 13y ago

Sorry Google. You've lost my enthusiasm. Why would I invest the time into learning how this works, trying to become part of the community etc when I can be pretty sure that they're just going to shut it down in a few years time?

kolya3 13y ago
You and I are both in the HN bubble. We expect Google to kill products and Google doesn't expect us to "become part of the community." We are not the market. However, the general consumer, the one this is aimed at, loves Google. Their experience is with the search box and maybe Gmail both of which serve consumer needs perfectly. Consumers don't remember or know Reader and every other app Google killed so their reaction to this product will be different.
- mattmanser 13y ago
  New tech like this needs early adopters, which is us.
  - user24 13y ago
    and we are the people that non-techies ask about which services to use.
  - kolya3 13y ago
    I think you are right when it comes to a product like Google docs - it's complicated enough that a consumer would look to the early adopters. However, this Helpouts product is simple enough for a consumer to understand that they dont need to ask their technically minded friends whether they should use it. All Google has to do to bring the users in is include a link to it on the search results page. "Were you looking advice on yoga? Click here to talk to a real person."
  - MarcScott 13y ago
    If Google is sensible then it'll exclude "us" from being early adopters. In the early days of Google+ trying to find anyone on the newly formed social network that wasn't part of the tech community was impossible. If we become the early adopters then all this will be good for is advice for setting up a VPS and debugging javascript. I doubt they're trying to create the world's largest IT support system.

est 13y ago

I am interested how would customer, provider and Google handle VATs. This could go wrong in so many ways.

Jyaif 13y ago
Isn't that the same problem as selling android apps?

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

BitMastro 13y ago
What do you mean by technology? I think it's basically hangouts with money exchange. Very similar to how freelancing websites work

Brajeshwar 13y ago

Oh! I double-checked if I'm back in the past in Aug, 20013 and not in the real world where Google just announced Helpouts on Apr 1, 2014. I'm sorry but the name sounded such.

bugmen0t 13y ago

There's a pluggable no-login audio-version of this already present today: Mozilla's TowTruck: https://towtruck.mozillalabs.com/ https://towtruck.mozillalabs.com/

hrktb 13y ago

This would need enormous amount of human time for moderation, user support and general community management. I wonder how it went on these fronts for Google+. I don't use it actively, and from my own echo chamber not many people seem to be using it, so not a good data point. For now, the only effort in this kind of product that work well seems to be Yahoo answers. It would be interesting to see the details of what Google is up to.

ahk 13y ago

Looks like a broader version of the 7 Cups of Tea service. Weird how these things come out nearly at the same time.

keefebowl 13y ago

Looks a lot like http://www.liveninja.com http://www.liveninja.com

wolfden 13y ago

I think this isn't meant to be just a service on its own. It's something that will only come to life when Glass is out. I stumbled upon this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYJuCZr67VE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYJuCZr67VE and now believe that this format is going to be wonderful for anyone trying to learn things. Google building in a backbone platform for it makes it all the better.

patrickaljord 13y ago
Thanks for being the only on-topic, interesting comment of the whole thread. This is really depressing. And yes, I think this could be really great with Google Glass, especially for medical stuff or cooking.

downandout 13y ago

I think Google will be shocked at how little usage this gets. Having founded a couple of ventures aimed at helping people make money online, I can conclusively say that it is much easier, for example, to convince someone to play a casual game online and waste their time than to convince them to join a site where they may be paid for their time. For whatever reason, it is incredibly difficult to get talented people interested in new ways to connect with people that will pay for those talents.

gz5 13y ago
Very difficult but will Google put this in front of enough people, enough times, in enough different ways to build a tangible niche? Google different than most of us in that they don't need to directly make money from this effort. The WebRTC analytics generated alone are likely enough to justify the costs.
bleakcabal 13y ago
Sometimes you just want/need to unwind and do something else even if you could be making a little more money. Also doing paid stuff outside of work can feel like more work, wasted time might be necessary recreation time.
pappyo 13y ago
Yeah, and their pricing model isn't helping them either. It's a tough sell to get professional experts to hand over almost a quarter of their earnings before the taxman cometh. Maybe if Google didn't fail pricing 101, they'd know something like 18.25% is more palatable to a consumer than a big round number like 20.
- japhyr 13y ago
  Do you have any sense what a reasonable fee would be? I am a math teacher, and I've seen math teachers make $80+/hr tutoring high school and college students. I'd consider trying this platform out, because it would take little effort to get started, and I'd have nothing to lose. I'd be a little frustrated to see Google take 20% right off the top. But I am assuming that Google has the infrastructure to roll this out without needing to take 20% to maintain profitability on this. Does anyone have a sense of a reasonable fee for this service?

oellegaard 13y ago

No thanks, I'd rather not tell Google more that can help them sell me targeted ads, which they conveniently insert in my inbox, looking like real e-mail.

andybak 13y ago
and the Most Predictable Criticism of Google award goes to...

marcin 13y ago

With the Youtube audience, this could nicely turn into new stream of live shows/reality TV where everyone can participate.

daniel_iversen 13y ago

When Google acquired and kills of such a similar thing and as awesome and universally useful and (hopefully/seamingly) altruistic initiative as Aardvark (vark.com) was, why do we believe that this new "Helpouts" will stick around and people should invest time and energy in contributing to it?

ck2 13y ago

My first thought "what could possibly go wrong with live 1-to-1 video".

unz 13y ago

This is amazing. Google will really do well with this, they need to branch into ecommerce as their ad business isn't growing much. With mobile gaining traction, this could be a central hub for a decentralized solopreneur economy, even inside corporations. You can consult your lawyer, accountant, doctor, pharmacist right from your tablet and be charged through this interface. Even better, your lawyer/doctor etc. is based in india and charge a 10th of the cost. Also, great to watch and charge babysitters, mechanics, cleaners etc. Also, supervising factory workers in china. The factory has telecommute robot for rent floating around and you log in and do some checking on your product being produced. If google record and analyze the videos, they could even run some machine learning on this and turn into automated robots that carry out the task. Great idea, an app store for people peddling that could turn into an artificial intelligence robot.

RDeckard 13y ago
Didn't they already have a similar service (similar to Yahoo Answers, but I forget the name), where people got paid to answer other people's questions? Only for the service to be shutdown some years later. Anyone remember the name?
- gummydude 13y ago
  Google Answers. lol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Answers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Answers
- unz 13y ago
  The problem with that was that you can just type stuff into google and search it yourself (google answers). The alternative is a few minutes of typing. This is different, it's for physical work monitoring, and where real time face to face interaction is valued. Alternatives to this are get in a car, rent an office, get on a plane.
- nvarsj 13y ago
  Google answers was awesome, probably the service I miss the most from Google. It was a lot like the stack*.com sites these days, but generally higher quality as people paid for answers.

abrahamsen 13y ago

I guess the 20% projects are not quite dead yet. It very much looks like something created by one or more enthusiastic employees, and not a strategic move mandated from above. Yes, there is a better than even chance that this will go nowhere like knoll, but could we please give it a chance to prove itself before shutting it down?

kmfrk 13y ago

This could be a trial balloon to see whether people would want to use Google Glass for something like this.

emhart 13y ago

I signed up. My main skill is opening/troubleshooting locks, and I think it would be an interesting experiment to see, A. if they would allow me to be a helper, and B. to test my efficacy as a digital locksmith. I've successfully had vicarious openings via both voice & text, so video seems like it would be even better. I have no opinion on whether or not this should exist, whether google will shut it down, whether it will be effective, etc.

alan_cx 13y ago
I hope you never accidentally advise a criminal and get metadata linked to a crime.
- emhart 13y ago
  I'm actually very curious about that sort of thing which is why I find A particularly interesting. My assumption is that Google would just avoid the headache altogether, but one of the rarely spoken truths about teaching physical security is that your students may have malicious intent. You apply whatever social screening you can, but at the end of the day, bad people exist and some pass pretty well for good people. When doing a proper lockout I can take IDs, have people sign things, etc. all of which have (in general, not in my personal experience) failed on one level or another and the modern history of locksmithing is rife with tragic stories of locksmiths unwittingly helping absolutely terrible people. Some means of identification/authentication would certainly be possible with Helpers, but again, I cannot imagine Google would engage in the headache of adding that layer.

planetjones 13y ago

I don't what others' experience of Google Hangouts is, but mine is poor quality and frustration. Maybe that's caused by network connectivity, which device is being used, etc. Not that it's much better on skype... I am not sure if the concept of getting paid for help via Hangouts is something the technology is reliable or high enough quality for at the moment. My prediction: this is just a gimmick which will go the way of Google Wave

appleflaxen 13y ago

This would look really interesting if it weren't Google. Why do I want to invest my time, energy, and effort into creating their content. Even if I get paid for my time, I get no "warm fuzzy" feeling of goodwill, because Google is the middle man.

lnanek2 13y ago

Joel Spolsky's help company did quite well. Not sure Google is technically capable of pulling this off, though. Was trying to use Hangouts all last weekend and half the people in the hangout couldn't get messages no matter what. The half we did get working involved bizarre dances of everyone going to each other's page to say hi before messages magically started coming through. All were shown as in the hangout, though. They threw out a good working system in Google Talk that even had people contacting me from other chat clients and platforms, like iPhone. Now they can't even get chatting inside their own platform working. I'm sure any effort by engineers to get this working would just immediately by quashed by the useless biz guys who control Google now.

misnome 13y ago

Sounds interesting. I can see a potential usage in remote tutoring. Parents set up their kids, who don't understand something, and use it to speak to someone qualified (you could have pre-approved lists or groups of people). And by virtue of being google, it has a large potential audience. The potential for abuse would have to be carefully monitored/considered, of course.

yesplorer 13y ago

I don't understand Google. They are closing down most projects, including those that have traction because, according to Larry Page, the want to rally around core projects. If that is the case why this? All this is going to do is kill the motivation of freelancing sites because the dinosaur has entered the room and definitely kill some of them. Yet I doubt they are going to be that of a big player in that niche. sigh

johnx123-up 13y ago

Looking similar to http://ace.dev.agriya.com/ http://ace.dev.agriya.com/

scragg 13y ago

If only ISPs would offer an upstream worth a damn, video streaming would be much more fun.

mithaler 13y ago

I still remember using Aardvark, which got shut down shortly after Google acquired it. This seems to be similar. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aardvark_(search_engine) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aardvark_(search_engine)

webwanderings 13y ago

I need help changing my kitchen faucet. My options are: a) DIY, b) arrange proportionally large amount of cash and call the professional help. Am I going to use Google as my option C? I really doubt, because there is a good chance Google will be arranging the same option B above. So what is the point?

rebelidealist 13y ago

Which division at Google is in charge of deciding what new projects to start? I'm wondering since the 20% time is gone.