A New Year brings new hype – and top of the shop right now is Quora, “a continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organised by everyone who uses it” (so says the ‘about’ page of its web site).
Founded by ex-Facebook CTO Adam D’Angelo and colleague Charlie Cheever, Quora was started in 2009 and has been open to the public since mid-2010. Its popularity, at least in terms of media attention, soared over the holiday period. So, what’s all the fuss about?
Dip in now and you’ll quickly connect to your Twitter and Facebook colleagues. Depending on your preferences, you’ll find yourself presented with information that might be of interest to you. This information, like in the ever-childish Yahoo! Answers, is presented in a sort of question and answer format. Where Quora differs from Yahoo! Answers is it’s concentration – in my feed, anyway – on the professional.
My interests mean that my feed is full of questions about social media, technology, CIOs and business. Which is great, if you can find something you need. But at the minute, Quora seems donimated by a few voices that have something to “sell”. This something might be ephemeral expertise, like a so-called ‘guru’ telling you how to make the most of Twitter (for the record, that is easy – you log-in, you follow people, you engage and you learn stuff).
So, what do you think? Are you on Quora yet? Do you think Quora will be the major social media platform of 2011, helping the business engage with its contacts and customers? Or – like the worst excesses of Twitter and LinkedIn – will Quora just be another platform to help ‘gurus’ evangelise?
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