
Is Quora the biggest blogging innovation in 10 years? - harscoat
http://scobleizer.com/2010/12/26/is-quora-the-biggest-blogging-innovation-in-10-years/
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cletus
Short answer: no.

Long answer: there is (IMHO) absolutely nothing innovative about Quora in
terms of technology or concept. It's a Q&A site. No more, no less.

The only noteworthy thing about Quora is the marketing success in all the
Valley insiders they've gotten to use it.

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simonw
Completely disagree. Quora have done a whole bunch of very smart and
innovative things that lead their Q&A site to be a very different beast from
Yahoo! Answers / Mahalo / Stack Overflow etc.

* They are the first Q&A site I've seen that is completely personalised - you only see questions that are either followed by your social graph or apply to the topics you have selected.

* Questions are owned by the community, not the person who asked the question. It's actually pretty hard to figure out who asked a question in the first place, and other people can improve the wording, apply topics etc.

* They don't use a dumb points or badges based incentive system. Instead, their incentives are much more subtle - it's all about seeing how your peers respond to your interactions. The "thanks" button is a lovely example of this.

In 2002, would you have said "There's nothing innovative about Google in terms
of technology or concept. It's a search engine. No more, no less." ?

But I don't think they're a "blogging" innovation. That's just a catchy
headline.

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mmaunder
Pagerank was a differentiator. None of your points are.

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huangm
Pithy, but wrong.

They might not be themselves differentiators, but they are indicators of a
differentiated understanding of how to design a good Q & A site that elicits
high quality content from high quality contributers.

Technology is no longer the only differentiator. We've moved far enough "up
the stack" that there are lots of ways to differentiate in consumer internet
beyond better algorithms.

Do Craigslist, Facebook, or Twitter have anything that's, in your opinion,
"differentiated"?

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stcredzero
One could argue that those three sites just have the network effect going for
them, but that's incorrect IMO.

~~~
codexon
I think Craiglist and Twitter had first mover advantage.

Facebook definitely started with the network effect. It was far technically
inferior to Myspace and Friendster when I first signed up.

I only joined because of the exclusive feel which soon changed when they
branched out. Many of my colleagues and I have said we never would have made a
Facebook account if it was public like it is now.

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citricsquid
> _First, look at the Quora items I’ve been participating in. This is a lot
> like a blog. But it’s not Dave Winer’s blog style. It’s any question I’ve
> followed, written in, voted up, etc_

No, it's like a forum.

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jasonwatkinspdx
What a huge exaggeration of a headline.

Not that Quora isn't interesting/useful/cool, but need we have a meta
discussion about how revolutionary every new product is?

It's like the Valley is turning into something like the more extreme parts of
the fashion world: generating it's own excitement and obsolescence in a way
wholly disconnected from the quality and utility of the actual products.

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dannyr
Inside the bubble of Silicon Valley, maybe it is.

For the rest of the world, I don't think it is. I'm waiting for people outside
the tech sector of the Bay Area to start using it.

~~~
notahacker
The big question is whether teens using it to settle debates on the respective
merits of Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus will add to or destroy Quora's core
value proposition...

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mmastrac
It's not a blogging innovation - it's just a stream of activity that happens
to be related to Q&A. It looks somewhat similar to someone's FriendFeed
activity stream, or Twitter conversation stream.

Quora and StackOverflow might have improved the traditional Q&A site by making
it more about conversations than just "HOW DO I GET BABBY" questions, but it's
not blogging. Blogging is more about writing about what's on your mind. In
some cases your blog entries are part of a conversation, but it's at the same
level that a newspaper editorial is part of a conversation.

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vyrotek
No. But while we're here, they need to fix their search.

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tednaleid
Totally agree, the usability of having a link that says "Add Question" to the
right of the "Find" box, with no other button still makes me think I might
accidentally be asking a question whenever I search. The only way to get
search results is to actually select something out of the autocomplete list.

I rejected using Quora twice before I finally saw an explanation of how to
search there.

I rarely want to ask questions, I often want to search. They've flipped the
priority of those two things in the UI.

~~~
bradly
> the usability of having a link that says "Add Question" to the right of the
> "Find" box, with no other button still makes me think I might accidentally
> be asking a question

I thought the search field was the input field for the 'Add Question' button
too. I finally found out when complaining in IRC that Quora didn't have a
search.

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fingerprinter
I just created an account and logged in using my twitter. Pretty painless and
I was soon presented with a stream of topics that interest me, highlighted by
people I follow on twitter. Interesting and already relevant.

However, it was pretty much noise. The specific questions asked were fun, but
not something I would like to spend any significant time dedicated to either
answering or reading about.

That being said, with the rise fo Twitter, many people stopped blogging. I can
see how this might get people to write something more meaningful and longer
than 140 characters again...and since they are "hanging out" with an people
they already have some interest in, it might work.

Interestingly, I think it almost fails as a Q&A site on first glance b/c the
search seems so horrific.

Will I go back? Probably not. I would rather still use Google, which has
better search, and see Quora in that feed.

Will other people create content for Quora, thereby creating value for Quora?
Yes, undoubtedly. It happened with Mahalo, Stack Overflow and Digg/Reddit...it
will happen here. To the scale Quora needs? Not sure. Depends if Google picks
them up and if they open up to third party tools ala Twitter.

Is it the future of blogging? Probably not.

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kevinburke
I asked Quora: <http://www.quora.com/Is-Quora-the-future-of-blogging>

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kloncks
Quora's relevance and absolute focus on completely revolutionizing the Q&A
sector is fascinating. They've done so many innovations in that space.

Counting that as an innovation to _blogging_ seems too far-fetched...

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codelust
Short answer: No

Longer answer:

What exactly is a 'blogging innovation'? Something that helps you run a better
blog? I don't think Quora qualifies as that. I know a few people who are
attempting to use the posts feature as a sort of blog, it is not quite the
same as an open blog. It is more like a Twitter follow on a access limited
account.

As someone loves Quora and is very grateful for it (so far, at least), I can
say that they have innovated mostly on the technical front.

Their differentiating factor is actually not technology. It is something that
even the best of technology can find hard to solve - curation of content and
the community.

One thing I can certainly think of that Quora has done right is to dis-
incentivize the A-list. There is no reputation score in Quora, your follow
count means nothing in your ability to participate anywhere. You contribute
most often because you genuinely want to.

To conclude, I like Robert for his sincerity and passion, but his take on most
technology and products are pretty poor.

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stan_d
It remains to be seen if Quora would get traction on topics not related to
Silicon Valley concerns.

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bbgm
While Quora is my favorite web destination today, and the one that I enjoy
spending time on more than others, I think Robert's getting way ahead of
himself. It's useful to drive ideas to blog about, and have interesting
discussions, but to call it a blog is doing Quora a disservice. It's a very
well done Q&A and information site, which isn't a bad thing, but the future of
blogging it's not.

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AndrewDucker
What differentiates Quora over Stack Overflow?

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kylec
Initially when Quora was launched it seemed quite similar to Stack Overflow,
but as the site has progressed it seems to me that it's actually quite
divergent in terms of the core focus of the platform.

Stack Overflow is all about getting great answers to questions. Everything,
from the reputation system, answer sorting, moderation, etc is designed so
that the questions that are asked are on topic and objective, and that the
best answers are situated right underneath. Not surprisingly, this focus was
borne out of frustration with Experts Exchange playing tricks and hiding the
answer to the question on the bottom of the page.

Quora, on the other hand, is all about social connection and discussion. It
does have a ranking system, but kinds of questions and answers that are
typically found on the site are much more subjective and are designed to
encourage many people to weigh in and provide different points of view. Quora
also places higher importance on the person's real name and employer than a
Stack Overflow-like score for on-site contributions.

Overall, I think the title of Scoble's post ("Is Quora the biggest blogging
innovation in 10 years?") sums up the difference quite clearly - Quora clearly
has more in common with blogging than it does with straight-up Q&A like Stack
Overflow.

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minalecs
is scoble an investor in quora?

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chunkbot
No?

