

“Facebook Questions is exactly like Quora.” - rwaliany
http://simplyryan.com/2010/07/28/facebook-questions-is-exactly-like-quora/

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marknutter
The value of Quora, from my limited time using it, doesn't seem to be in the
system so much as it is in the user base. I've seen answers authored by more
founders/programmers/entrepreneurs from successful companies than I care to
count.

Facebook is going to suffer from a very fundamental flaw: its users are there
to do two things: spy on their friends and play casual games. No one is
logging into Facebook with the Google-esque "I'm trying to find something or
help someone else find something" mentality.

Quora's users are highly motivated and know why they are at Quora.com - to ask
and answer questions.

Interestingly, this is probably the same reason why Google will never succeed
at social networking. Google has solidified itself in the minds of the public
as the company who provides us with information when we want it, not the
company who satisfies our voyeuristic desires.

All this being said, as much as I rag on Reddit, I think they have Quora and
Facebook beat as far as question/answers go. If someone could harvest that
data and provide an interface that isn't as butt-fugly as Reddit they'd get
some decent traffic.

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qq66
I'm absolutely stunned by the quality of the Quora user base. Someone asks
"How did Netscape do X" and Marc Andreessen says "Well what we did was..."

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ivankirigin
Title question + answers + right hand nav != exactly like.

The profile of the answers will produce the difference. I get the impression
that FB-answers will be more like a comment on a facebook story while Quora is
more authoritative like a wikipedia page.

FB comments are fast, easy, and shallow. Wikipedia is relatively contemplative
and certainly greater depth.

Wikipedia is also much more persistence. The past doesn't seem to exist on
Facebook, but for question search, it might in this case.

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notahacker
Problem with "authoritative answers" is it depends entirely on the user base
(and in the case of Wikipedia, very active moderation). If Quora becomes
massive it'll end up with plenty of trivial questions and unhelpful answers.

In that respect, the existence of Facebook questions might actually help keep
out the chaff from Quora. It's not so good for the investors though...

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Detrus
Social network websites are similar. Github has followers and will probably
add related projects or individuals that work on similar projects.

The difference for me is facebook is a mess, it's too big, the design has
gotten very sloppy and aesthetically it's corporate looking, designed by
committee vomit. I don't get how people spend prolonged periods of time there.
At least it's one less distraction for me.

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barmstrong
FB questions is about as much like Quora as Quora is like StackOverflow.

Fair game in this competitive landscape.

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robryan
Very few facebook groups which touch the mainstream (and even some fairly
specific ones have a much lower quality of discussion than what I've seen from
Quora. Problem is that as Quora grows it will come up against the same issue,
being a niche website doesn't seem like the Quora vision.

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kellysutton
I feel like if your entire product can be put out of business/duplicated
overnight, there's little value in what you're doing.

I'm sure Quora will be fine; they've been around a little and have a
community.

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whakojacko
>I feel like if your entire product can be put out of business/duplicated
overnight, there's little value in what you're doing.

>I'm sure Quora will be fine; they've been around a little and have a
community.

Arent these statements a bit at odds? Anyways, I think the "little value"
argument doesnt hold very well in the age of social sites, where the network
effect is hugely important. Lots of people could create a half-assed
twitter/facebook clone quickly, but that hardly means theres little value in
those 2 companies. I mean look at LinkedIn - The product is pretty bad, but it
has such strong network effects its not going anywhere soon (unless someone
builds an app on top of facebook, IMO.)

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usaar333
The lack of anonymity is a huge differentiator.

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rdl
Anon User has been steadily decreasing in prominence on Quora.

I signed up in March 2010, and Quora has been my favorite site since then,
mainly due to the initial population of users, those users setting a high
standard, and then new users carrying though.

There are a lot of Quora users I actually trust more than my facebook friends,
and several I also like more.

The slickest realtime UI I've seen to date makes the whole thing even more
pleasant.

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rwaliany
Interesting, facebook questions has an ESP Game-like solution to answer
questions, similar to hunch where you cycle through questions
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESP_game>).

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dmix
"Reddit is exactly like Digg."

