9ask is a Chinese Free Expert Answers Service That Looks Promising, But Needs Work

Sometimes, you just have to talk to an expert. But not everyone knows one, and some kinds of experts — especially lawyers — can be pretty damn expensive. Chinese startup 9ask hopes to resolve this problem by providing users with free expert answers.

It’s a pretty simple concept (and not an entirely original one): you type out your question, in as much or as little detail as you’d like, and then you wait for an expert to answer it. The site will eventually feature experts in nine fields — law, education, cars, health, children, real estate, finance, startups, and management — but for the moment only lawyers and education experts are available.

The site has a slick frontpage, but then splits into subdomains for each type of expert that are designed with a more ‘traditional’ throw-every-link-possible-on-the-front-page approach. But of course, a site like this lives and dies not on its design but on the quality of its answers, and here, it seems 9ask still has quite a ways to go. I spent some time browsing the legal section, and while it does seem like there are a few different lawyers working there, they all seem to give very brief (just a few words) answers, and they’re not always even that helpful. Most answers seem to be something to the effect of “you can do [legal action] directly at the court,” and that’s more or less all that’s said. 9ask is definitely not threatening to replace paid legal advice any time soon.

Oddly, the education site seems to work a bit differently, and when I tried to search the “questions and answers” section, all the responses I got back were articles, not Q&As.

I’ve always liked the idea of a site that offers qualified expert advice, but 9ask really isn’t there yet. The company clearly has ambitious plans for expanding the service, but I hope it will also take some time to reflect on unifying the user experience and also on ensuring that its experts aren’t simply giving one-sentence answers and then collecting their paychecks. Users may not be paying for the advice they get, but if the advice is worthless, people are just going to use “Baidu Knows” and hope the net-using masses can crowdsource a better answer.