Well… I have some thoughts, but some of which I’m not yet ready to share. Keep an eye on what we’re doing, though.

I certainly agree that in-house analyst-based selection is not viable. There are much more effective solutions that are on the way. There are some companies that have done some very interesting work in this field who are not in the expert network business, but whose models are quite enlightening.

Currently, as far as we know, all expert networks can be quite hit-or-miss when it comes to selecting experts. Firms which specialize in only one industry, such as yours, presumably are better able to have strong in-house analysts who can separate the wheat from the chaff; nevertheless, the in-house analyst-based selection process seems like it might run up against some serious problems once the business starts to scale in volume..

As President and CEO of Techdirt, I wanted to first, thank you for this write up, but also respond to a few inaccuracies in the report.

First of all, it’s incorrect to say that Techdirt relies on experts rating each other. Currently, we do not do that. Ratings are based on customer reviews or Techdirt staff reviews — not other experts. While we may experiment with peer reviews at some point in the future, they will always be a separate ranking mechanism, rather than the key mechanism.

Second, while Felix Salmon did point out some issues with our implementation back in February, this was based on an early beta release, and we have continued to update and improve the system. Also, the system was not designed to do some of what Salmon expected it to do, which lead to some of the critique. We have a variety of different options in how the system can be used, some of which are designed to enable a broader conversation, and some of which are simply designed to get more detailed expertise to the company. We recently started offering more open conversations on some cases, while leaving others more closed. It’s really based on what the customer needs.

While Salmon claimed that there was “no sense” in the way we implemented it, he failed to note the explanation I had given him in earlier conversation: many of our customers wanted to see the initial insights of the experts before they were influenced by the wider discussion. The reasoning was to avoid groupthink — and the system has been rather successful in doing so. That said, as mentioned above, we are also now starting to offer more open conversations as well.

Finally, I’ll note that Salmon did not speak to any of our customers, who have been quite satisfied with the results of the Techdirt Insight Community and keep coming back for more. We most certainly recognize that the system is not for everyone, but we have many happy customers as well as experts.

That said, we’re still in beta, and rapidly adding new features and services to what we offer. Stay tuned…

Thanks again for the writeup, and please don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions.

Mike Masnick
CEO, Techdirt Insight Community