For the social search service pill.cat is implementing the AskNext protocol top of the well known e-mail system. It means that if a user ask a question, the agent of the user will first look for answers in the local knowledge base, than it asks the contacts of the user/agent. If a contact is not able to answer, it can ask a contact of his. This way a question can be asked from the contact of a contact of a contact ….etc.
The evaluation of who should be asked is not done yet, but it is intended to use a trust model which is aware of domains. It means that a user can be trusted in one topic while disregarded in another.
In reality the agents asks each contacts without any decision making, but this is the very first approach only.
Originally AskNext is a peer 2 peer protocol, but in practice we use a central server in order to provide a yellow pages service to find contacts.
Since we need to have a central registry of all users the question emerges: Why do we need to get connected with others via a series of contacts when we already have a registry containing everyone?
The very first answer is because you trust your contacts more and this way it is a more social and human like way to get information.
It sounds reasonable, but think it over a little bit. Let’s suppose you want to get your washing machine fixed.
If you adopt this idea and apply it on QA systems with agents you realize that it is actually a good idea.
Conclusion
The original AskNext protocol is a wonderful idea with all it’s bottlenecks and advantages. But since in the real implementation we do need to know at least the address of others and therefore we need a central yellow pages service we should take advantage of this architecture.
In other words, besides we could ask our friends and the can ask friends of their friends etc, we can find and get contacted with agents and users in a direct fashion based on yellow pages with profiles and global reputation. After all these temporally connections could become permanent aka the newly contacted users could add each others to their contact lists.
In the next post, I will give a detailed description how do I envision this new idea. How to realize it quickly with existing tools and services and how can the new chat system make the e-mail solution more complete and more intuitive to use.
The evaluation of who should be asked is not done yet, but it is intended to use a trust model which is aware of domains. It means that a user can be trusted in one topic while disregarded in another.
In reality the agents asks each contacts without any decision making, but this is the very first approach only.
Originally AskNext is a peer 2 peer protocol, but in practice we use a central server in order to provide a yellow pages service to find contacts.
Since we need to have a central registry of all users the question emerges: Why do we need to get connected with others via a series of contacts when we already have a registry containing everyone?
The very first answer is because you trust your contacts more and this way it is a more social and human like way to get information.
It sounds reasonable, but think it over a little bit. Let’s suppose you want to get your washing machine fixed.
- First if you had a contact of professional handy-man who fixes these things and you trust him, you will make your call.
- At the second place you may ask your friends to offer someone and than you will make a direct call, maybe you will refer to your friend. Also if your friends’ friends’ know someone who could help you is always great especially if it is not in 2 weeks delay.
- Finally you will get a yellow pages or google and find a service.
If you adopt this idea and apply it on QA systems with agents you realize that it is actually a good idea.
Conclusion
The original AskNext protocol is a wonderful idea with all it’s bottlenecks and advantages. But since in the real implementation we do need to know at least the address of others and therefore we need a central yellow pages service we should take advantage of this architecture.
In other words, besides we could ask our friends and the can ask friends of their friends etc, we can find and get contacted with agents and users in a direct fashion based on yellow pages with profiles and global reputation. After all these temporally connections could become permanent aka the newly contacted users could add each others to their contact lists.
In the next post, I will give a detailed description how do I envision this new idea. How to realize it quickly with existing tools and services and how can the new chat system make the e-mail solution more complete and more intuitive to use.
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