Google Helpouts is now out and about, with an interesting business model. Not sure how it fits into Google.
Google Helpouts has been launched this week with much fanfare. It got coverage on all relevant technology blogs and news outlets, and will definitely be tried out by many. If you’ve been following me, you might have seen my analysis of the Experts Market that is created around WebRTC. Helpouts is such a service.
The gist of it:
- Google hand picks the experts manually. There are a 1000 of them now I am told
- Each expert has his profile. He decides his specific payment terms and availability. His “customers” rank and review him
- Customers use discovery to select an expert and schedule a meeting with him
- Payment is done with Google Wallet, and Google takes its 20% share off the transaction
Not different than the rest of the pack, with the one minor caveat of this being Google and not a small startup vendor.
I have my doubts about where this is headed. At first glance, it is too small a market for the likes of Google. Assuming a ratio of 1:1000 experts per population, with 1 monetized call a week, at an avarage of $20 a call, you get $200M a year in transaction fees. My guess it will be a lot less for the next several years; and today, it is crumbs. And Google doesn’t seem to me like the vendor that can open this market up.
Why?
Because of the first bullet – Google hand picks the experts manually. Google isn’t about manual – it is about automation of everything, done for the purpose of increasing scale. This manual process is no doubt to get people on board and to maintain high quality in the initial launch and throughout the first year or so, but is this something Google can maintain and do through time?
To me, this is similar to Amazon’s new Mayday service for Kindle Fire tablets. In this service, Amazon provides a video support service, available in a single click from the tablet, with a target of 15 seconds on average of wait time. That from a company that is all about self-service and had nothing to do with online customer support.
Both vendors are now using WebRTC, or WebRTC-like technologies.
And both are making use of it to try new grounds and do things that are out of their comfort zone and DNA.
–
Will Helpouts succeed? Who knows.
Will the experts market be large enough to sustain the current vendors in it? Another unknown.
Fascinating times.
Google Helpouts isn’t WebRTC powered, yet.
http://www.webrtcworld.com/topics/webrtc-world/articles/359205-beyond-search-bar-google-helpouts-put-touch-with.htm
Well… Amazon Mayday may not be using WebRTC either, so it is a fitting comparison.
The issue here is less the technicality of using WebRTC in a pure manner or just the concepts and parts of it – it is more about where are vendors headed with such solutions. The large players it seems, are actually using it to disrupt adjacent markets where they were non-players just a day ago.
One interpretation of Google’s whole push (supported by what they say) is that they have been explicitly reacting to just how difficult it has been for them to build all these custom communications applications and they are then working out how to make all the technology standard and easily accessible to everyone, especially in browsers. Yes, they believe that if they dramatically expand the whole ecosystem and the awesomeness of web (and mobile) applications then they, Google, will ultimately benefit (the “evil” thesis) – but so what? We all get better open technology including WebRTC and can build better apps starting right now (the “not evil” thesis).
interesting comparison.. I think it is 2 distinct use cases for WebRTC. One is a CRM tool for a particular product.. other is a market place for experts/advisers for people to sell their skills. We are realizing that every use case is a separate vertical with its own value model, business case and even the jargon. Fun!!
Absolutely – every use case is its own use case, every industry is its own industry :)! None of this should surprise us – there is no common use case for HTML(5) or for mobile phones and tablets or even PSTN for that matter. These are all enabling technologies where the question becomes: how easy is it to now create and embed richer customer and user experiences into sales, service and business workflows to drive differentiation and expanded revenue in my particular area? We have had decades of telecommunications and then video being a separate isolated world that is difficult and expensive to integrate with, guarded by big vendors each with expensive components and proprietary APIs (if they exist). With WebRTC yet another area – real-time voice, video and data-sharing – is now open to millions of developers and organizations to sprinkle into their particular use cases as they see fit. I think Amazon Mayday is a beautiful example of “fit for purpose” design that delivers exactly the customer experience they want and not what some existing system demands. Whether it is exactly WebRTC is irrelevant – it is WebRTC-type technology and if YOU want to do your own thing then you are likely to use WebRTC components for your work because it’s simpler, although you are always welcome to build your own communications stack and integrated devices if you have Amazon’s skills!
This just doesn’t make sense to me.
Take for example I consider myself an “expert” rather than rely on Google for this insight and/or ranking.definition – what flows out of this
Question 1 – How do I define my expertise? – what TAGS do I use? Where are these tags defined so that I am talking a language that people searching for my expertise can find me
Question 2 – Do we have globally acknowledged language we can agree on – and is this defined to the level of the TAGS used for identifying specialisation?
Question 3 – Do all people who are looking for an answer to the same question define their question in the same way using the same TAGs etc?
Questions 4, 5, 6 … x – introspect on how this would work in practice in a global world with multiple values, multiple languages etc. etc.
And then how much do experts charge in the real world, In Australia you night pay say $200 to $1,000 per hour. for an expert.
If you need the assistance of an “expert” how long will you need to spend defining your question / issue to your “expert” in a way that they can “understand” what you mean and what value you place on the outcome – At the rate of $200 to $1,000 per hour how many people are prepared to pay for this?
And if I am an “acknowledged global expert” I will be overbooked – so why should I accept a new request for assistance though google when I have no time and they want to clip 20% of the ticket – if I am over booked I should be putting up my prices rather than giving away 20%.