There is Something About Quora

Sep 8, 2010 by TheZargon    22 Comments    Posted under: Featured, Social Media

I was recently introduced to Quora, a new social network that focus on knowledge. In its own words “Quora is a continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it. The most important thing is to have each question page become the best possible resource for someone who wants to know about the question.”

In other words, Quora is a knowledge database built by the community, for the community regarding any subject. Unlike Wikipedia, that takes its model from a traditional encyclopedia, Quora’s users can ask whatever they want and get answers from like-minded individuals–from business strategy to if people work naked when they work from home–all is accepted as a question and there are always people to share their point of view according to their own experience.

It is here where Quora really excels. Make a question about “Y Combinator” and you will probably get an answer from one its venture partners; make a question about Google or Android and you will get an insight from people that work or used to work there. The beauty of it is that it doesn’t stop or stays focused on Silicon Valley and technology or social media subjects: cooking, best day trips, sociology, psychology, art, you name it; Quora is a growing database of knowledge made by its vibrant community.

How Quora Works

Topics

When you first join Quora you can chose topics that you are interested in. If you were invited the person that invited you also has the chance to recommend to you some topics they know you would be interested in. That will get you started in what comes to topics.

Network

Quora uses Facebook and Twitter so you can start following your friends within Quora. You will see that the more questions and topics you start following you will be inclined to follow people that are involved in the same topics and whose answers you appreciate.

Ask, Answer, Comment, Thank, Vote

To ask a question all you have to do is type it in. After that you will be able to “host” that question in a topic (or several if that is the case). Your question will then be available to everyone following those topics thus generate answers.

There are no constraints to how many questions you can answer (even if you are not following those topics and you just came across it via someone on your timeline or by search) but you can only answer once. You are able to edit your answer at any time and comment on others’ answers where and when you feel appropriate.

A important part, in my opinion, of the whole system is that you are able to vote or thank for any answer given to a question which allows others know that you found that answer helpful.

You are also able to vote an answer as not relevant/helpful to the question and the question will be hidden from the timeline but you are still able to see it’s content if you choose.

Quora Pros and Cons

Pros

1. Ease of use: The interface design is clean and intuitive and allows you to easily navigate the site. The timeline shows you new questions from the topics you are following and the activity of the people you are following as well. Anytime there is activity on a question you are following (a new answer, comment or vote) you get a notification.

2. An interesting community: It is much better to know the secrets for cooking the perfect Peking duck from someone that cooks and lives in Peking (Beijing) than from a cookbook written by a French person. Quora has managed to bring to its network lots of high-profile people that are answering questions that relate to their companies or former companies (the case of Johnathan Abrams, ex-Friendster, comes immediately to my mind).

3. A free advice network from like minded individuals: Unlike Twitter, Quora’s noise ratio is very small. The fact that, if you want, you can only follow one or two topics without even following anyone helps keeping that noise ratio low. This means that when you post a question about, say, karaoke you will only get answers from people that are into karaoke.

4. Twitter and Facebook Connect: When you sign into Quora you will be able to check which of your contacts/friends from Twitter and Facebook are already on Quora. This will help you get started on the network by giving you suggestions to follow people you are already connected with, see their activity as well as the topics they are following.

Cons

1. Quora’s user base: At the moment the user base is still small but as this changes the noise ratio in the most popular topics will surely go up. I have already witnessed some questions to which the answer could easily be found by making a Google search and some other questions that are made by people that are just trying to prove some kind of obscure point without even knowing what they are talking about.

2. Spam: As Quora’s user base grows one can expect more spam, which is already happening especially on Twitter related topics. (Yes @Klout representative, this is for you.)

3. Addictive: This should also be on the “Pros” but Quora really should come with a “consume with caution” warning. Quora is addictive because, if you are like me, you will see one question and another and another and you want to answer to it or make a comment, or comment back on a comment and suddenly two hours have gone by. Of course you can consider this work, as I do for some topics, but I would strongly advise that you force yourself to only spend some limited amount of daily or weekly time on the site.

4. Anonymous users: This is, in my opinion, a big drawback. You have to register yourself to participate in Quora but you have the option to create a question anonymously and also to answer questions anonymously. Anonimity, these days, is mostly used by people that have something to say but don’t have the balls to say it using their name. That Quora supports this kind of behavior is something I still can’t understand since Quora states on their About Quora page, “Everything on Quora is tied back to a person.” Each question and answer has a revision history associated with it, and each change in the log is associated with the person who made it. People use their real names and pictures on Quora and have a short bio describing who they are; this helps anyone reading things they write to understand why they should believe what is written and take into account the author’s perspective.”

Got anything to say? Go ahead and leave a comment!