[Web4lib] Mahalo Answers - The latest commercial virtual reference wrinkle

Wed Dec 17 11:40:20 EST 2008

I'm just reading this thread and looking over Mahalo answers, but on a
glance all I see is an incentive based discussion forum/chat room.  I mean
sure, that is one way to answer questions, but it looks like forcing it to
be a question-answering service is just that: forcing it to be something
rather than letting the technology be what it is.

I mean "cutest baby photo contest"?  really?
http://www.mahalo.com/answers/newborn-and-baby/cutest-baby-photo-contestgo

Trolls will have a field day here...

On Wed, Dec 17, 2008 at 11:08 AM, Chris Barr <christopher.barr at villanova.edu
> wrote:

> Hi Bernie et al.,
>
> While these large crowd-sourced one-stop-shops may not be sustainable in
> the long run or provide a commercial revenue stream, I believe the basic
> model of these sites is useful for libraries to replicate in their own
> environment. (While the economic models might be interesting, the UI
> innovation of simplifying what would otherwise be a forum is also worth
> noting.)
>
> The truth is that we are answering questions all the time and not always
> extracting all of the value out of these transactions. Many of us are
> logging those questions into tracking systems for statistics. Here at
> Villanova we had been using the open source Libstats (
> http://code.google.com/p/libstats/) software for a couple of years. What
> we realized is that we had a great knowledgebase that our patrons had no
> access to.
>
> So, we built our own little frontend to Libstats, where users could post a
> question on our website, it would be answered by a librarian (or another
> patron), an email would then be sent to the patron alerting them to the
> answer, and the q&a then remains on the web to be found through our sites
> search, Google, or by browsing.
>
> Here is what we came up with (highly inspired by Yahoo! Answers):
> http://library.villanova.edu/Help/Answers
>
> We launched this in August, and we still have improvements to make to our
> system to make it full-featured, but I think it will be far more valuable to
> our community than the handful of FAQs that we provided in the past. Now we
> just need cute avatars!
>
> The difference from the local system to the big guys:
> 1. It has a context.
> 2. A smaller, controlled community. (You have to have a University ID to
> ask a question in our instance.)
> 3. Librarians are answering questions that they would have to answer
> anyhow. It is part of our job and we get paid to do it (and not in Mahalo
> dollars). We are just trying to extract more value out of the answers by
> providing them to the whole community rather than just one person.
>
> Libraries should not be worried that questions are being asked and answered
> on the Internet by people other than librarians. (We wouldn't expect
> librarians to hang out at the mall to answer questions for a dollar, why
> would we want to do the equivalent in cyberspace?) Libraries should be
> concerned if they have not provided an easy way to ask questions on their
> own online environment.
>
> Going forward we should be thinking about how the knowledge we create can
> have value to not only our own community but also to others on the web
> running into similar issues as our own patrons. The information we create
> needs to be just as easy to use and discoverable as the others...
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Chris Barr
> Interface & Design Specialist
> Falvey Memorial Library
> Villanova University
>
>
>
>
>
> Steven E. Patamia, Ph.D. wrote:
>
>> Hi Bernie,
>>
>>   I think we agree that when Google Answers folded it was a bad sign
>> for the viability of the idea.  I recall that Google answers tended to
>> fetched a higher financial reward than Mahalo and what little I saw of
>> it reflected much more serious research efforts.  I am not quite sure
>> whether Google explained why it closed it up (a research project!) as
>> it probably didn't cost them much to host it.  I do think that Mahalo
>> has a poor chance of reaching self-perpetuation -- but I don't wish
>> them ill nor do I claim to see the future that precisely.
>>
>>   What you and I are sensing is that there is something missing or
>> poorly conceived about the way answer systems like Mahalo and even
>> Yahoo work.  As a librarian, you are quite naturally intrigued by the
>> implications.  I am curious for slightly different reasons.
>>
>>   In a perfect world, (as you view it of course<g>) what role should
>> librarians play in contributing to ad hoc information requests?
>>
>> On 12/16/08, B.G. Sloan <bgsloan2 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>  Steven Patamia asks:
>>>
>>>  "...would somebody PLEASE explain to me WHY any librarian would WANT to
>>> spend their time answering questions in this manner?   I can imagine some
>>> answers, but I'd really want to hear from librarians why they are either
>>> worried or enamored of this.  Maybe I am missing something important --
>>> would not be the first time<g>!"
>>>
>>>  I wasn't suggesting that librarians should want to participate in Q&A
>>> services like Mahalo Answers, and I wasn't saying that librarians should
>>> necessarily be worried about or enamored of these services. I was just
>>> pointing out yet another commercial Q&A service attempting to fill a niche
>>> that I've long held that librarians were ideally suited for: online
>>> reference services.
>>>
>>>  Sure, libraries offer online reference services, but I don't think
>>> they've come close to reaching the potential that I and others saw back in
>>> the early days of online/virtual reference in the mid-to-late 1990s.
>>>
>>>  Many of the commercial Q&A services have fallen by the wayside. And
>>> others, like Yahoo! Answers, have become more like social software sites
>>> than straightforward Q&A services.
>>>
>>>  When Google Answers folded I found myself thinking that if a company
>>> like Google, with all its dollars, can't make a Q&A service work...maybe
>>> there isn't a real market for these services? Maybe people are "satisficed"
>>> enough by the information they can find on their own? And maybe that's why
>>> library online/virtual reference services never really met the expectations
>>> held by the early pioneers of online/virtual reference...maybe there's not a
>>> big enough demand?
>>>
>>>
>>>  Bernie Sloan
>>>  Sora Associates
>>>  Bloomington, IN
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>> Steven E. Patamia, Ph.D., J.D.
>> Personal Cell: (352) 219-6592
>>
>>
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>>
>
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-- 
Nate Hill
nathanielhill at gmail.com
http://plablog.org
http://twitter.com/natenatenate