Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just sent you an invite to your gmail address.
Thank you :-)
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Quora is already “Google Useful”
11–20 of 40 posts
Re: Quora is already “Google Useful”
#12What does Quora solve that other existing solutions don't? http://www.mahalo.com/ http://www.formspring.me http://vark.com/ http://answers.yahoo.com/ http://www.chacha.com/ ...
It's invite only. It is more useful than the others because of its high SNR. It's useful for members of the Silicon Valley echo chamber because it's entirely populated by members of the Silicon Valley echo chamber.
They seem to also have good usability and cool tech that helps keep thing even more relevant, but the challenge will come when it is opened to the "How is babby formed?" Yahoo Answers public.
Re: Quora is already “Google Useful”
#13What does Quora solve that other existing solutions don't? http://www.mahalo.com/ http://www.formspring.me http://vark.com/ http://answers.yahoo.com/ http://www.chacha.com/ ...
Fast, high quality answers from very intelligent people.
Quora's community is small and is primarily composed of people in tech/academia (probably because of its invite system). Real names are displayed (profiles are often linked to facebook accounts) so any response carries some weight of reputation. Every user has a timeline of new questions and recent responses that are filtered towards topics that the user follows. Presumably, the users follow topics they are knowledgeable about.
So: 1. The invite system builds a small and intelligent community.
2. The filtered timeline and low volume of questions enables fast responses from users.
3. Along with #1, the addition of reputation yields high quality answers. The topic following system gets questions in front of "experts" efficiently.
4. There is a voting system for responses much like stackoverflow.
Quora reminds me of HN + Facebook profiles + Stackoverflow.
Re: Quora is already “Google Useful”
#14Anyone else have a spare invite?
Re: Quora is already “Google Useful”
#15Anyone else have a spare invite?
What's your email address?
Re: Quora is already “Google Useful”
#16What does Quora solve that other existing solutions don't? http://www.mahalo.com/ http://www.formspring.me http://vark.com/ http://answers.yahoo.com/ http://www.chacha.com/ ...
It's invite only. It is more useful than the others because of its high SNR. It's useful for members of the Silicon Valley echo chamber because it's entirely populated by members of the Silicon Valley echo chamber. They seem to also have good usability and cool tech that helps keep thing even more relevant, but the challenge will come when it is opened to the "How is babby formed?" Yahoo Answers public.
http://ask.metafilter.com prevents eternal september by intentionally making the sign-up process slightly difficult. Rough interface and a $5 fee for new accounts.