Why Quora is in trouble • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Quora is in trouble

#61

Post by joe_the_user » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 6:17 PM UTC

I think this leaves the question-space STILL open.

I've never tried Quora and never would use it because I never use my main Facebook profile for anything else (I like Facebook, I hate Facebook's idea of non-privacy).

Stackoverflow once was useful but has basically died as far as I can tell (answer quality plummeting as users become addicted to easy-low-quality-answers-as-a-way-quick-Karma and thus let any hard question sink fast).

Googling to answer technical questions has gotten less rewarding as well as Google becomes less literal and thus prevents me from doing fine-tuned filter when I don't immediately get the right answer.

So what could appear in the answer domain? (and think this domain is still quite large).

Re: Why Quora is in trouble

#62

Post by 1va » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 6:23 PM UTC

jsavimbi wrote: post #35

sgdesign wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, that was not very well written. I meant to say that not solving a well-defined problem is not always a death sentence (see: Twitter, Reddit, etc.), but that it's still not a very encouraging sign.

> Twitter didn’t solve any real problem I automatically discounted your entire argument based on those six words. If you're still unable to see the problem that Twitter solved, then you shouldn't be writing about tech, media or related.

Ok. I'll bite: What problem do you feel Twitter solved?

Re: Why Quora is in trouble

#63

Post by AndreasReis » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 6:24 PM UTC

nc wrote: post #12

Quora is extremely useful. It eliminates a lot of my visits to about.com style websites and replaces them with structured q&a. It also adds a layer of transparency (you can see who has answered a question, their 'credentials') and get a feel for who to trust. It's quick and the answers to any questions so far have been insightful. I fail to see how structuring all q&a dispersed over the web to a centralised site is a…

Not really

Re: Why Quora is in trouble

#64

Post by tzury » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 6:37 PM UTC

Few questions:

1. Does the author know that Quora traffic is decreasing dramatically (a fact which states a web service "in trouble") or just he assumes that "since I left, all others left with me"?

2. What does he means "Not solving a problem"?

If I want to know how many NICs I can stuff into a single server machine [1] or how to build a 10Gbs wire-tapping monster[2] or why programmers so fanatical about their text editors[3] where will I go and ask those questions? attackofdesign.com? shall I start gambling which of the 4 sites of stack exchange is the best site to get the answer and not getting it migrated 5 times before getting and answer?

BTW, the first two questions were real world problems I solved and quora helped me a lot.

I simply cannot stand this anymore, smart people are spending time and energy to build things we can use for free, and we, instead of thanking them, talking about their "troubles" and giving them advice.

The easiest thing for a _blogger_ to do is to write where did Bill Gates gone wrong, or why is Google failing going social time after time (hey, people, until two weeks ago, this was the mainstream state-of-mind).

I do not believe in critics, I do not read critics before I buy a boo, watch a film or go to a restaurant, and ever since I did so, I failed less, while by the time I was relying on critics I failed much more. The fact is simple, can you mister opinion do any better? Can you? If you can't, stay still, if you can, stay still and do instead of talk. But, no, those who cannot compose a jingle for the local radio station write music reviews, and people who cannot make a decent omelet blogs about restaurants and those who cannot do start-ups blogs about start-ups.

Michael Arrington build an empire by writing about startups, yet when he gave it a shot with that tablet and the Singaporean company , he failed at the spot one would not expect him to fail at (he's a lawyer, mind you).

I am not saying there is no room for blogging about start-ups, all I am saying is that I would rather be on the side of those who _make_ the news, rather than the side of those who _write_ the news, let alone those who _read_ news.

If ideas are dime a dozen, advice is dime a dozen kilograms.

[1] http://www.quora.com/How-many-ethernet-ports-can-I-build-int...

[2] http://www.quora.com/How-can-I-build-a-high-performance-serv...

[3] http://www.quora.com/Why-are-most-programmers-so-fanatical-a...

Re: Why Quora is in trouble

#65

Post by jdp23 » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 6:42 PM UTC

ilamont wrote: post #59

cletus wrote: post #2

You 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?

Aardvark's acquisition by Google for $50M about 18 months, back when the market wasn't as bubblicious as it is now, is one comparable. http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2010/02/12/aardvark-google/ looks at why that valuation arguably made sense. Aardvark had $6M invested, Quora's got $11M.

Like I said in my other comment, not sure what valuation makes sense, so I'm not convinced it'll be in the X00,000,000 range... but it's not impossible.

Re: Why Quora is in trouble

#66

Post by jdp23 » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 6:45 PM UTC

tzury wrote: post #64

Few questions: 1. Does the author know that Quora traffic is decreasing dramatically (a fact which states a web service "in trouble") or just he assumes that "since I left, all others left with me"? 2. What does he means "Not solving a problem"? If I want to know how many NICs I can stuff into a single server machine [1] or how to build a 10Gbs wire-tapping monster[2] or why programmers so fanatical about their text…

I'm not the author but there is plenty evidence that Quora's traffic has decreased significantly since January (almost certainly by their choice). The results since April depend on who you believe; Google Trends says it's flat, Comscore says that it's increasing month-on-month and is back to February's level.

http://bit.ly/imitates#comment-151083

Re: Why Quora is in trouble

#67

Post by Hovertruck » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 7:21 PM UTC

code_duck wrote: post #46

Hovertruck wrote: post #33

Interesting. I always felt Quora was overdesigned, as if I couldn't move my mouse anywhere on the page without triggering some sort of hover effect. Drove me absolutely crazy.

I've had serious problems with the flow for things like signing in and password recovery. I signed in with Twitter - I think - now when I go back, they're asking for an email? No idea which I used and I can't find any emails from Quora, so my account is lost. I've never had such a problem with any other site.

I'm stuck in the same pit. I've tried logging in a few times and can never seem to get back in.

Re: Why Quora is in trouble

#68

Post by melvinmt » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 7:26 PM UTC

To me, Quora felt like a big blog site, where nitty people spent hours of writing nitty comments and the 'question' just set the topic. Quora was never that interesting as a pure Q&A site. If you ask practical, unsexy questions you will get a hard time getting answers from anyone - because writing blog-like comments for trivial questions isn't worth it.

I think that G+ has the advantage over Quora in that it skips the whole Q&A dance but still allows these early adopters to do what they really care about: to be heard.

Re: Why Quora is in trouble

#69

Post by jetz » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 7:27 PM UTC

Quora is hardly going mainstream because mainstream cannot ask the questions that Quora elite would answer. Not that they don't have the ability but they don't care! If it does ever it'll be called Yahoo Answers.

Re: Why Quora is in trouble

#70

Post by biot » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 8:27 PM UTC

jdp23 wrote: post #55

cletus wrote: post #2

You 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…

Unobfuscated non-Libyan link: http://www.talesfromthe.net/jon/?p=2332#comments