[WEB4LIB] Live help no longer free from WebHelp.com??

[Richard Wiggins]

The business sections are full of headlines describing free Internet services going by the wayside or trying to charge.  In essence, these free services were paid for out of capital generated by years of irrational exuberance, which was largely deflated with the collapse of dot com stocks this past year.

Hoover's reports that Webhelp.com in 1999 had 58 employees and net income of minus $4.9 million.  It looks like they filed for an IPO in 2000 but are still privately held (based in Toronto).

It couldn't last forever.  I wouldn't be surprised to see Amazon's legendary service quality slip.  I sure wouldn't expect a private sector, human-staffed reference service to last for free.  People are expensive.


/rich

------Original Message------
From: "Sloan, Bernie" <bernies at uillinois.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at webjunction.org>
Sent: January 16, 2001 4:24:46 AM GMT
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Live help no longer free from WebHelp.com??

...

The cost is not outrageous ($9.95 per month). And WebHelp has always had
this "express service" option. Just makes me wonder why the free live
service has been dropped??

Bernie Sloan
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Richard Wiggins
Consulting, Writing & Training on Internet Topics
http://www.netfact.com/rww  wiggins at mail.com
517-349-6919 (home office)  517-353-4955 (work)  
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