Expert answers for your tech questions.
A few weeks ago we wrote about TechCheatSheets as a great way for developers to have information at their finger tips to help ensure smooth coding sessions. Now we bring you Qunu, which uses XMPP based Jabber to help users get real-time answers to their most pressing tech questions. You can get an answer to a complex XHTML programming question or discover some cool hacks for Photoshop. Qunu is currently in alpha mode and has only been online for 40 days. Thanks to a little help from some Digg users they already have nearly 1,400 tech experts signed up to answer questions. To use Qunu you’ll have to register unless you’re already using Jabber, or, you can always sign up to offer your expertise. The best part for those with questions is that the service is free!
I don’t currently use Jabber so I registered for Qunu and found it to be painless since they only required me to make a username and password. However, as I attempted to find the answer to a Photoshop question, I was disappointed that the system moved very slowly and the links that were supposed to take me to an expert weren’t working. I tried a few hours later and had the same problems. Qunu cannot be blamed too much for the site problems since they’ve made it very clear that the site is still in alpha testing. I’m sure the technical issues will be fixed in time.
Qunu was started by South African Helmar Rudolph, Australian Murray Gray, and American developer Justin Kirby. Amazingly the team works virtually with each other across the three continents. They currently don’t have any way for the site to make money, and while they promise the main basic service will remain free, they state that they are actively looking for ways to monetize the business. One idea, similar to Google Answers, is to have people to post more complex specific questions and state a dollar amount that they are willing to pay for the answer. Once the usability of the site is improved, and the user base is established, then monetizing the site should be fairly easy. However, I would be concerned with some of the big online sites with their own proprietary IM systems simply copying the idea.
Categories - Development, Qunu | 
July 18th, 2006 at 4:49 am
Our tomcat server died suddenly and had to be restarted. That explained the temporary outage on Qunu.com yesterday when it came to inviting experts for a chat. Was the first time tomcat died, but it’s all fine and well now. /. effect taken in stride.
July 18th, 2006 at 8:58 am
Helmar,
Server problems are something we understand as our servers were temporarily out for a few hours yesterday as well. I encourage our users to try Qunu now and tell us how it was (you can write a comment here, but be sure to put the review on Qunu’s page in BuzzShout too). Cheers!