People-assisted answering services

[Sloan, Bernie]

Nick Tomaiuolo's recent posting concerning automated answering services like
AskJeeves reminded me that I recently ran across another non-library
"people-assisted" answering service on the Web (WebHelp.com). I now know of
four such services:

http://www.allexperts.com
http://www.expertcentral.com
http://www.inforocket.com
http://www.webhelp.com

WebHelp.com seems to be a pretty ambitious undertaking. Supposedly they have
900 employees, and have a North American center of operations based in
Minot, ND. They hire people to provide the service, rather than relying on
the volunteer experts that many other sites use. Most of the corporate
officers have backgrounds in customer service call centers, and WebHelp
seems to be patterned on this model.

If any of you know of any such services that I haven't listed above, please
send me the URL.

Thanks!

Bernie Sloan
Senior Library Information Systems Consultant
University of Illinois Office for Planning and Budgeting
338 Henry Administration Building
506 S. Wright Street
Urbana, IL  61801
Phone:  (217) 333-4895
Fax:      (217) 333-6355
E-mail:  bernies at uillinois.edu