Google’s Helpouts service, which allows users connect to experts for live video help on a range of different topics, has just been released for iPhone.
The Internet is a wealth of help, guides and educational resources, and if you’re ever stuck on anything in particular, you can always ‘Google’ it. But even the Big G recognizes that sometimes, trawling through pages upon pages of redundant forum threads in order to find an answer isn’t always practical, and even after hours of searching, the solution often still manages to elude us.
Helpouts connects you to engineers, doctors, counselors, and other specialists, so no matter what your particular issue may be, you can deal with it in an immediate fashion. The here-and-now nature of this Digital Age still has its limitations, but services like Helpouts seek to fill in the gaps, allowing you to get any help on any topic, at any time of the day.
Launched late on last year for both Android and Chrome, Helpouts is a paid service, and if you do connect to an expert, you are, for the most part, required to pay a fee for their time. On rare occasions, your session may be free, but more often than not, you’ll have to pay a per-minute or per-session cost.
If you consider yourself to be an expert in a certain field, you can become a ‘Helper-outer’ as it were, but you’ll have to be assessed by Google and become verified before you can do so.
There are ratings and feedback systems as standard, so if you’re looking for the very best help, you’ll be able to check their reputations in advance of parting with any money.
Even though Helpouts has been running for around six months, it’s fair to say that it hasn’t really taken off just yet, but perhaps this decision to launch on Apple’s iOS will help it to grow more quickly.
The app itself is absolutely free to download, and you can grab it right now via the link below. And be sure to let us know what you think about it.
(Download: Helpouts for iPhone on the App Store)
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