Quora fell apart when Ashton Kutcher and other celebs started posting.
Why Quora is in trouble
51–60 of 100 posts
Re: Why Quora is in trouble
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the article: "The site is visually bland: there’s barely any color or images, and you won’t find any effect fancier than rounded corners." Somebody please save us from the attack of web design. If I see another gradient rounded flashing Javascript-enabled button for gradient rounded flashing Javascript-enabled buttons' sake, I'm gonna hurl, Wayne's World style.
agreed. look at craigslist - about as unsexy a design as you could imagine, but it solves real problems for people, and they use it constantly. quora - not so much, and fancier buttons and UI won't really change that.
His point wasn't about making it more fancy but rather, less sterile. Even Craigslist has more character.
Re: Why Quora is in trouble
#53"twitter solves no problem"
I stopped reading there. staying informed is a real problem. It is just one twitter solves. Entertainment is not a problem but a desire, and another one that twitter satisfies. Quora works for both as well. I trust what I read on quora
Re: Why Quora is in trouble
#54I was once a heavy quora user. Here's what drove me away (I do still use it but I no longer 'hang out' there): the overwhelming pretentiousness and self-righteousness of many within the very early core userbase who, because I was in that early group, dominate my feed (don't know if they dominate for others...). You can only read so many "what does it feel like to be dumb" or "if i went to Harvard how should I respond…
Several people also mentioned the "Quora elite's" attitude as a big problem in a thread that Thomas Hawk started on Google+ a couple of weeks ago: https://plus.google.com/104987932455782713675/posts/XXp28NN4...
Re: Why Quora is in trouble
#55You can count me as one of the long-term Quora detractors. To me, it's a good example of the "bubble effect". Everyone in the Valley thinks its huge because everyone in the Valley uses it. No one outside the Valley does (figuratively speaking). It's a thin social layer on what's just a Q&A site not that different to Yahoo Answers, which I guess is fine but I just don't see it going mainstream. As an aside, I've alway…
I'm also a long-term Quora skeptic -- and have been documenting the reasons why in the comments at http://bit.ly/imitates#comments for the last six months. Agreed about the likely outcome; hard to know about the valuation.
And agreed with the other commenters that StackExchange/StackOverflow is in a very different situation. It's hard to know whether or not they'll get to "mainstream"; but they don't necessarily have to in order to be a very successful company. And they've got a huge advantage of several topics where they are one of the best resources on the web -- and an much larger active community than Quora.
Re: Why Quora is in trouble
#56You can count me as one of the long-term Quora detractors. To me, it's a good example of the "bubble effect". Everyone in the Valley thinks its huge because everyone in the Valley uses it. No one outside the Valley does (figuratively speaking). It's a thin social layer on what's just a Q&A site not that different to Yahoo Answers, which I guess is fine but I just don't see it going mainstream. As an aside, I've alway…
No one outside the Valley [uses Quora]
I'll validate that: I've barely heard of it. I've never visited, and it never seems to turn up in Google or DDG searches.
Re: Why Quora is in trouble
#57You can count me as one of the long-term Quora detractors. To me, it's a good example of the "bubble effect". Everyone in the Valley thinks its huge because everyone in the Valley uses it. No one outside the Valley does (figuratively speaking). It's a thin social layer on what's just a Q&A site not that different to Yahoo Answers, which I guess is fine but I just don't see it going mainstream. As an aside, I've alway…
"Everyone in the Valley thinks its huge because everyone in the Valley uses it."
My techie friends from Silicon Valley also don't use Quora. So don't worry, not everyone in Valley uses it. I think very few % of Valley users are using it.
Re: Why Quora is in trouble
#58His reference article (on Evaporative Cooling Effect) is a lot more enlightening:
http://blog.bumblebeelabs.com/social-software-sundays-2-the-...
Re: Why Quora is in trouble
#59You can count me as one of the long-term Quora detractors. To me, it's a good example of the "bubble effect". Everyone in the Valley thinks its huge because everyone in the Valley uses it. No one outside the Valley does (figuratively speaking). It's a thin social layer on what's just a Q&A site not that different to Yahoo Answers, which I guess is fine but I just don't see it going mainstream. As an aside, I've alway…
"Ultimately I see the end for both companies being a Google or Facebook buyout in the $X00,000,000 range, which I think says more about the overall market than it does their inherent value."
Can you explain how a site like Quora would be worth at least $100,000,000 to Google, Facebook, or anyone else?
Re: Why Quora is in trouble
#60I think SE can go mainstream. I don't say SO because that's more for programmers. I see lots of activity in say photography and cooking. I can see lots of academia using SE as well, just look at all the theory related exchanges. I think the biggest downfall of Quora is the login and sign up process. I don't even want to deal with it because SE makes it so easy. I can sign in with my google account and then go to another exchange and click a few times and sign up there. I automatically get 100 points because i am signed up on SO with over 100 points. This makes it so i don't even have to start all the way over. I just think because it's so easy to sign up and login on SE, that it could be mainstream. You can use any login service.
Only problem with SE are the rules. I know why they are there, but for a new user it can be intimidating. A lot of people may not ask a question because they are afraid they will get "bullied", "trolled" or whatever you want to call it.