I know you’re all curious, so I won’t keep you waiting. Here’s what the participants of the Stranger Experiment thought of it:

It’s kind of cool to see what sort of things people are interested in finding out. Thanks for putting in the effort of organizing such a cool experiment!

I actually still have an ongoing conversation going with one person, even though neither of us could help directly with our original requests, we happened to have knowledge or experiences in regard to some other random stuff that kept the conversation going.

It seems really useful in a couple of ways… it offers a rather unique way to try to track down information and resources for stuff that maybe isn’t all that straightforward to find. Today it’s like everybody’s answer to everything is to “google it” but that doesn’t always work for a lot of things. While the results can be hit-or-miss, this offers the unique chance that you may just stumble across someone who can actually help with those more complicated or specific quests.

It’s also a rather unique approach to social networking. I think the downside to a lot of the mainstream social networking resources out there is that nothing really encourages you to meet complete strangers other than usually superficial reasons (like seeing how many MySpace “friends” you can get… even though you might not have exchanged more than a couple of comments with each person). This actually provides a purpose to meeting other people–you’re actually trying to help folks out, and even if it ends up that you can’t help each other with the original goal, you might at least make some interesting connections in the process. -j.m

[It's] a new angle on traditional types of dating / social networking sites. -j.d.

It was interesting. I’ve found myself telling other people about your site. -a.m.

The conversations were very helpful. Eric and I are collaborating very strong together. -k.r.

Although it was not successful in that I did not find what I was seeking, I think it is a great way to potentially meet others that I might not have come in contact with otherwise. If you have something similar in the future let me know! -j.d.

I did not ask for any friends’ help, but I did tell each requestor that I knew people who might be able to help, described the type of help they might get, and offered to make introductions if they were interested. -m.k.

I am still chatting with one person as he seems to be a very interesting guy. -c.f.

I think it’s a great thing you have going. All three of my conversations were very helpful and it was definitely a great way to get in touch with people that before, you had no idea how to find. Hope to see this project continue. -b.k.

It was exciting when I got an email and I enjoyed the process when I was able to help or knew someone who could help. I think that having a conversation with anyone you do not know opens you to new and different experiences and complimentary perspectives you may not find otherwise. -e.s.

I got a few leads, about 3 were helpful. People were really helpful overall. I felt like others were as excited as I was about the experiment. -k.c.

In general it seems that some people felt it worked really well for them, and although many people didn’t find exactly what they were looking for, they felt the experiment was interesting and worthwhile.

One suggestion came up a few times- to have people identify what their background and interests are. Then the requests could be more specifically targeted to a group of people that are likely to be helpful.

Thanks to everyone who participated! And congratulations to Kim who is the lucky winner of the Best Buy gift card!