[Air-l] Internet information sources

[Karim R. Lakhani]

interesting question.

in my research (with eric von hippel) on user-to-user technical support 
for apache web server - we found that most information seekers had 
already invested significant time in prior searches before posting their 
questions on the newsgroup. having not found the answer they were 
looking for they then went to the newsgroup and posted a request for 
help. interestingly those on the newsgroup were not there to help - 
rather they were there to learn.  most information providers just gave 
them information that they had at hand. the question-answer transaction 
had asymetric costs and benefits.  information providers spent less than 
5 minutes composing the answers and information seekers reported about 3 
hours in time savings from those answers.

so i think most people post for help in the hope that someone will have 
*exactly* or close to exactly the solution they need.  so in your 
instance getting the right list (may be even vetted by an experienced 
person) from a person would be more valuable than just getting a 
gazillion hits via google.

best,

K
-- 
===============================================
Karim R. Lakhani
MIT Sloan School of Management
MIT Free/Open Source Software Research Project
e-mail: karim.lakhani at sloan.mit.edu
voice:  617-851-1224
fax:    617-344-0403
http://spoudaiospaizen.net/
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