What the Heck is Quora Anyway?

Is Quora that heinous creature from Harry Potter that emerges out of the Forbidden Forest in an effort to gobble up Harry? Is it some Spanish verb we forgot to conjugate back in the 7th grade? No and no to both propositions. Quora, ladies and gentleman, is the latest award-winning, start-up social network to catch fire in Silicon Valley.

 

Quora is a question and answers collaboration website. According to Quora, they define themselves as, “a continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited and organized by everyone who uses it.” Essentially, Quora acts like Wikipedia, albeit in a more dynamic format. I’ll take you through what Quora is, its benefits, shortcomings and why you should be on this every day. Allow me to back-up and explain Quora’s genesis…

Quora’s Founding

Quora was conceived in the fall of 2008 by two Facebook engineers, Charlie Cheever and Adam D’Angelo, who founded Quora after discussing what they called “latent markets” over Chinese food. According to Wired magazine (May 2010 issue), latent markets are “areas of online behavior in which consumer demand is clear but existing solutions are lacking.” They realized that sites devoted to answering questions were a prime example of a “latent market.” The current players at the time, Yahoo Answers and Answers.com, were popular but a mess. Enter Quora.

Quora’s Interface & Usability

Quora’s attractiveness resides in its users’ ability to control the quality of the content, in an effort to display only the most relevant, useful content towards the top. Users can “vote up” good questions and answers and “vote down” content he/she deems poor. Questions become their own page. You can choose to follow questions or topics and the ensuing conversations that follow within each. Interestingly, questions do not discriminate. Currently “What are some tips for scuba diving without oxygen tanks?” is one place above “What is the Best Piece of advice a mother can give to her daughter?” Although unrelated, these questions were voted up by users, hence their high positions on Quora.

Quora’s Shortcomings

Quora suffers from a lack of diversity. Topics within the tech and start-up realms remain Quora’s bread and butter. Venture too far outside these areas and you are bound to find a barren digital landscape. For example, when you type in, “how did Robert Kennedy die?” into the add question bar, only one result is matched against this query. These gaping holes in Quora’s fabric of knowledge will be filled in over time and an issue that Quora’s founders acknowledge. Another issue Quora deals with is an influx of poor content that pushes relevant, useful material farther down the page, leading to increasingly watered-down material. Despite these issues, Quora still owns a burgeoning following, to the tune of over 200,000 visitors each month…and growing.

Quora’s Future

Although this start-up is in its nascent stages, its future appears to be robust. In the latest issue of Wired, Keith Rabois, a super-angel who has invested in more than 60 companies, “believes Quora could be the most important start-up since Facebook and Twitter.”  Max Levchin, a PayPal cofounder and the brains behind Slide, offered even more promising words, “…Quora may one day rank among the web’s 10 most valuable businesses.”

Are you on Quora? Are you engaging with other professionals in your field, building your personal brand and generating leads….well why waste any more time, go sign up for Quora!

 

Jim Armstrong is a May 2010 graduate of Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.  He now works for New York City-based advertising firm Ogilvy & Mather as an assistant search planner.