What do you think of Quora?
If you've had a chance to play around with Quora, what do you think of it?
4 Answers
I just had a look at it Mike (as a consequence of you mentioning it here!) First impressions are that the information seems a bit unorganised and overwhelming. Also, I like it here that you can have people's photos linked to their comments as it makes it more personal. Quora doesn't seem to do that.
It will be interesting to see where they go with it. I think demand for this kind of knowledge sharing technology will only increase
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Interesting feedback. They do actually place a user's photo next to their answers or questions - but since you didn't notice that, it means their UI isn't very usable. I'll admit, I prefer the StackOverflow interface to Quora too. And I agree, demand for Q&A platforms will surely increase, especially for niche communities & topics. – Mike Lee 14 years ago
I see some paragraph of text that this is questions and answers (about what?) and a requirement to log-in to find out more info. So, nothing at all.
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Ah, I was curious about what people thought if then logged in and played around with the service a bit. I have no affiliation with them and aren't trying to increase their number of registered users, so you don't have to log in or anything. What I get from your answer is the opening page & service wasn't compelling or interesting enough for you to go any further. Good feedback. – Mike Lee 14 years ago
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Yes, it tells me nothing about the service e.g no context information. – Ross 14 years ago
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I agree. I probably wouldn't have logged in if you hadn't mentioned it here. I think the simple interface has a lot going for it, but it does have to have enough information that the user knows what they are getting into and feel safe entering an unknown space. – Susan Jones 14 years ago
Quora is awesome, the key differentiators between Quora and OnStartups are:
- Quora has numerous "rockstars" answering questions
- There is way too much spam here recently
- OnStartups has better game mechanics (points, badges)
I think both are useful, however, expect much more detailed answers on Quora (for better or worse)...
I've used Quora a lot and am a big fan & user. I would go so far as to say that the answers on Quora have solved a lot of my startup issues and helped me bring my startup up to launch. I've never had much of an issue with the interface. The reason they decided against putting a persons's picture next to the question they ask is to take the focus away from the person and instead focus it on the question. I don't know if this has been detrimental to the cause because I've found good quality answers for most of the questions. But I must say I like that the our picture's are shown here. I've recently started using answers.onstartups and I like both services.
I think a more appropriate question would be what differentiates answers.onstartups from Quora really? Apart from this site catering only to startup questions - because if you take a look, there are a lot of startup questions/answers (its probably the core subject) on Quora as well.
