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Quora: The Next Big Thing?

by 42 Comments

Why is everyone talking about Quora?  One reason is because a lot of people (even me) are flocking into Quora now, including Ashton Kutcher. (No signs of Justin Bieber yet)!  At the moment, Quora has roughly 200,000 users signed up, however you will need an invitation to join.

What is quora? On quora’s page its “a continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it” .In short is a like a Q&A site, similar like yahoo answers and LinkedIn Answers.

For me, Quora is like a cocktail of yahoo answers, LinkedIn Answers and twitter.

Why?

Yahoo Answers – Ask Questions
LinkedIn Answers – Have professional answer questions.
Twitter – You can follow and unfollow people. Like someone answer? FOLLOW them.

Mix them all up and you get Quora. What caught my attention of quora was an article from telegraph.uk mentioning that quora will be bigger than twitter. If you ask me, I don’t see quora becoming as huge as twitter anytime soon. At this point, twitter has roughly 200 million users (some reported they have 220 million). The reason why I say that quora will not be as huge as twitter is because I don’t think people will go into Quora everyday to ask questions or answer questions.

Unless they are dedicated in helping new users or people who ask questions or experts in the field. I do see freelancers like web designers, coders, tech users, or people with the same passion like photography using this daily though. What about teens? Maybe not! However, I will definitely spend some time everyday and follow topics on twitter and social media.

What makes twitter huge is because of its simplicity and the ability to connect with people without boundaries. Having said that, I think what makes Quora special is the relevancy. Quora is more relevant and more targeted compared to twitter. It works very well if you want to ask a question, and you can get them answered.  With twitter if you’re not active or doesn’t spend much time on it, you might not get any replies at all. That was why Shamus wrote a blog post if twitter should do a quora and let you follow topics.

I would say YES. One reason is because twitter wants to add more relevance. Since they want to do this, then this is one way of doing just that.  Twitter could actually have a competitive advantage with doing a Quora with their user base and businesses accounts on twitter. It would also make topics to be followed easily.

My suggestion to twitter? Have two features to add relevancy.

1) Top tweets – Like facebook’s top news, twitter should have the top tweets arranged according to every  10,30 or hourly. Something to help users to know what is HOT as well as get the most recent updates.
2) Quora -Adds more relevant. Twitter users are able to follow topics, hence follow more targeted followers. Businesses are able to see if anyone are talking about their brands and questions people are asking. Brands are able to reply to those questions as well.

Quora’s Future?

Facebook will get worried and start implement facebook Q&A to everyone so that people will use their Q&A instead of quora.  Secondly, Google will want to acquire it. In the future I will explain why Google should buy quora.

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Comments

  1. Why keep us in suspense about why Google should buy Qoura…;)

    I’m so glad I stopped by, Aaron. Of course, I could do a counter to your tech-saavy ways for all the Luddite’s out there!

    Look forward to more Qoura quandaries and Twitter battles for dominance.

    Happy New Year!

  5. ok nice… but you know what? It will not grow if no one gives out invitations… I would like to have one please….

  12. hey Aaron great review here. Thank you for inviting me to Quora.

    Let me point why I don’t agree with you in some points:

    “My suggestion to twitter? Have two features to add relevancy.

    1) Top tweets – Like facebook’s top news, twitter should have the top tweets arranged according to every 10,30 or hourly. Something to help users to know what is HOT as well as get the most recent updates.”

    I think that the Top tweets exists already (TT, 100+RT etc..) and We have a great web based tool that help us know what is HOT which is nothing else but chirrps.com. My chirrps’ window is open 24/7 and it helps me seek and follow all the latest news on twitter.

    I don’t think that incorporating a top tweets like facebook will help the Desktop based programs users (tweetdeck, etc…) And you know very well, that 90% of active twitter users use Desktop based programs or even CoTweet (had to add it so you don’t get mad at me)

    Right back at you.

  13. Good day,

    I love a good debate.
    Okay the top tweets are good, however it is leaning towards a keywords. For example if i search the keyword “starbucks” or “quora” It doesn’t show me who are the the top tweets from my followers which is something that I would want.

    Indeed the purpose of doing it is so that people won’t use tweetdeck as much. After all twitter wants people to go onto their website, not use 3rd party applications which will not help them to make money :). Unless its hootsuite. Which i think is a smart move because people are using that to search for key terms.

  15. Hey Aaron,
    Good day to you too,

    Taking the the top tweets from your followers or following is a “deja vu” with Tweetdeck’s “tags cloud” feature. People won’t leave the 3rd party applications whatever happens. You need to click and you have the most discussed tag or words in your timeline (list or home). Then follows a quick search and Voila!

    Ps: I love a good debate too

  18. Could you send me a Quora invite, too?
    Jas3in@zoho.com

    I need to know more about Game development and while the answers for other questions are a good read, I can’t apply them to my own situation.

  19. Hi Aaron,
    I just heared about quora this morning and googling it.
    I found your blog and read a good point of view about this new stuff.

    I hope, I could receive an invitation to Quora from you.
    Here is my email mikerumawas@gmail.com

    Thank you Aaron.
    (keep posting good stuff)

  20. Hi Aaron, interesting post… I agree with you that quora is not becoming as huge as twitter soon. But in a longer run this could gain momentum. The people behind are smart and experienced and it seems to me that they just selected some ingredients of concept which have worked out pretty well on the social web. Like mentioned by you: Ask/Answer like Yahoo/Linkedin, The follow concept and the invitation concept like we know this from club shopping, where it prooved to be a great way to “generate” users. As I agree with you about to add relevancy on twitter (well would be nice) I hardly doubt if this is possible, because with some topics you can pack relevancy into 140 chars. This is where I see quora stepping in.

  21. Hi Aaron,
    I was looking for informations about Quora and found your blog, very good review of this new tool.
    Could you send me an invitation in order to try it ?

    Here is my email nimaay@yahoo.fr

    Thank you again !

  27. Should Google integrate/substitute Knol with Quora? An invite would be highly appreciate (paolo dot sonego at gmail dot com)! Thanks!

  28. Hi Aaron

    I’m new to sites like Twiter or Quora, and I was searching for some information that could guide me.
    Understanding your point of view and other comments from your readers, I think that Quora, as a new alternative, could be more easy for me to incursionate.

    If possible, could you send me an invitation? my e-mail: alejovillada@hotmail.com

    Regards

  37. Hi Aaron, if it still possibile could you send me an invitation at ashluke @ alice.it?!?
    Thanks a lot,
    Luca

  38. I’m afraid that Quora would lose its relevancy once Justin Bieber gets his hands on it! haha I could only imagine what those teenage girls would do just to get an invite. Is he even on Formspring? Which brings to my second question, why bother with Quora (and aching to have an invite) when you can easily sign up with Formspring? Oh well, I played around yesterday and I really enjoy the intellectually stimulating conversations and hey, Pete Cashmore is actively answering questions there. I remember when he used to be really active in Blipp.

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