Internet Psychologist Graham Jones wrote an article last week, in which he stated, search is dying, and is being replaced by sharing information socially<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“So worried is Microsoft about Google that they haven’t realised that Google is not their real competition any more. It is the likes of Twitter and Ecademy…Google already knows this. Much of their labs work and their adaptations of what they already offer are geared to sharing information socially. They realise that search as we know it is dying. Microsoft is so focused on fighting Google, they haven’t realised they are on the wrong battlefield.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Let’s assume Graham is correct. Where does this leave online user assistance?<\/p>\n

Since Online Help was introduced, technical communicators have provided hypertext links, key word search and an index to help users find information.<\/p>\n

Today, there is\u00a0greater emphasis on key word search (finding stuff via Google), and we’ve seen a few authors add tag clouds too.<\/p>\n

So how could online user assistance (“Help”) be shared socially? Is it likely that someone will respond to each question by tweeting a link to a particular page in a Help file?<\/p>\n

That’s incredibly labour-intensive. For Support teams to answer queries via Twitter might be less time-intensive than responding to emails, but it may be difficult to provide an answer within 140 characters. Most likely, they could provide to links to places where the question is answered.<\/p>\n

We’ve talked about the emergence of “landing pages” in Web based Help (so have Michael Hughes and Matthew Ellison), \u00a0and that may be a less intensive way to guide people to the information they need. By this I mean, point people towards say 6 landing pages, from which they can be guided quickly to the information they need.<\/p>\n

It may also be difficult for users to pose their questions within the limitations of Twitter.<\/p>\n

A more likely scenario, I believe, would be\u00a0to create Twitter avatars. The fictional characters from “Mad Men” post regular tweets about their imaginary lives<\/a>. If Don Draper and Peggy Olsen can tweet, then why not create a personas for your customers and let them do the same? Billy the Beginner and\u00a0Patty the Power user, for example? Their posts could guide customers through the key tasks via a series of daily Twitter posts.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

Of course, this is more than about\u00a0how to best use Twitter. It’s about\u00a0social networks, the ideas from the Cluetrain Manifesto and Web 2.0 ideas of syndicating content, collaborating with your user base and aggregating content.<\/p>\n

Graham Jones\u00a0concluded by saying\u00a0“just\u00a0concentrate on providing and sharing good material”.\u00a0 Technical Authors can help the organisation provide good material. What we may all have to work out is\u00a0how we can share<\/em> this material in more effective ways.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Internet Psychologist Graham Jones wrote an article last week, in which he stated, search is dying, and is being replaced by sharing information socially. “So worried is Microsoft about Google that they haven’t realised that Google is not their real competition any more. It is the likes of Twitter and Ecademy…Google already knows this. Much… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[174,253,159,160,194,195,245,176,222,220,153],"tags":[304,273,276,272,262,303,263,264],"class_list":["post-778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-collaborative-authoring","category-content-marketing","category-online-communities","category-social-networks","category-technical-communication","category-technical-communicators","category-technical-writers","category-technical-writing","category-trends","category-twitter","category-web20","tag-add-new-tag","tag-collaborative-authoring","tag-documentation","tag-technical-authors","tag-technical-communication","tag-trends","tag-twitter","tag-user-assistance"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n