Bitwine – Professional Advice over Skype

BitwineI have for sometime been interested in highlighting different ways with which the tremendous talent in Pakistan is able to tap into the global market and make a buck or two in the process, since we continue to face a number of hurdles which include visas to economic restrictions by the Government of Pakistan. The Internet era should in fact melt away the boundaries of intellectual trade but sadly users in Pakistan remain crippled with no access to a Paypal account as discussed previously. Surely, we then easily miss out on the wealth that eludes us due to bureaucratic red-tape.

In the effort to locate possible streams of revenue for people, I happened to stumble upon a very interesting site called Bitwine. This is a place where one can go to get professional advice on any issue, could easily be compared to a system like Google Answers and Yahoo Answers, both of which I saw to be slow and cumbersome, where one has to sit down and type a question and then you sit in hope of quick and correct response.

Bitwine takes the process a step further, it has slowly started to aggregate a number of professionals who are willing to share their advice with anyone willing to pay for their hourly rate. Literally anyone can be an expert as long as you have a specialty. Experts can be anywhere from computer specialists, bird experts or more specifically in the case of Pakistan we may even have a professional ‘mobile snatcher’ who might give advice to the world on how to snatch a cell phone.

Quite simply, leave it to your imagination and sign-up, set your rate and wait for someone who might share the interest and he/she will call you via the Skype portal, you don’t even have to remain online to receive the call as Bitwine can even setup an appointment with your client deciding on a mutual time to initiate the discussion.

Personally I see a tremendous potential in this concept as it merges the concept of Internet telephony to real people, other sites have tried but have more of a US presence like Ether who don’t have Pakistan in their international call list since they physically make the call. So for Pakistan an VoIP solution is perfect and with even a decent dial-up connection, one can easily make a little pocket change for all the hot-air you may choose to deluge out to your clients.

I, as a dentist also see a potential in the concept as it allows me to share my expertise (though I can’t perform any treatment) but can surely give good honest no-financially motivated second opinion on any/all dental problems. This service can even be used for primary consultation (tapping those people who have no dental insurance, or are too lazy to drive to a local dentist) or even second opinion to confirm a treatment in progress. (We dentists can deny all we want, but globally there is a significant rise in dental malpractice where dentist are slowly becoming financially motivated in prescribing treatment, which is unethical but thousands of ignorant people fall through the cracks). I have listed myself on this service and am available to offer dental advice.

Try out Bitwine for yourself, maybe it can generate a steady stream on income to help you achieve your goals.

drawab@BitWine


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6 responses to “Bitwine – Professional Advice over Skype”

  1. shobz Avatar

    hmm thats a great idea. maybe i can contact you whenever i have some dental prob. hehe.hurray for technology.

  2. AC Avatar

    Maybe not for treatment, but for a second opinion on an upcoming treatment yes! For some urgent issues where you ask yourself, “should I go to the doctor or not?” I am sure BitWine and the Teeth Maestro here can help.

  3. Asad Avatar

    This certainly has possibilities. Innovation is the tool to use against competition.

  4. Fariha Avatar
    Fariha

    This post reminded me of Richard Florida 🙂 who talks about 21st century as the age of the Creative Class in his books “The Rise of the Creative Class and “The Flight of the Creative Class.
    The creative individuals of Pakistan indeed have got a lot of opportunities to prove their talent out in the global market and get some financial benefits as well. For this we need not just the access to those resources that facilitate our knowledge workers (another term being widely used these days to refer to the creative class) participation in the global competition but also the techno mindset. Unfortunately, most of our people are either afraid of using different technologies or they simply dont use it the way they should be thus losing many of the opportunities.

  5. charlie Avatar
    charlie

    I have used Bitwine for photography consultation and wound up having a paid video chat with an expert, located in Europe, 7,000 miles away. I paid a fraction of what the expense would have been to go to the various photography shops and internet sites to get the same information.

    As for payments, take a look at a company Payoneer. They have a Mastercard debit card that is used by affiliates; many located in Pakistan.