What is Quora?

Over the last few weeks I’ve been following the growing interest in Quora on social networking sites like Twitter as well as in several blogs including from tech evangelists; Robert Scoble, who started this Quora craze with his posts; Is Quora the biggest blogging innovation in 10 years?

Now I of course disagree completely about Quora as a blogging innovation, however, having used it for a while now I can say that it is addicting, engaging, informative and gets A-Listers answering questions from anyone and everyone.

So What is Quora?

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Quora

I believe that this question is very well answered on the Quora about page as well as questions posted on Quora itself. However, here’s an easier interpretation of what Quora is in my honest opinion.

in short, Quora is a simple site where you can ask questions and expect answers from other members of the community. It’s similar to Yahoo Answers and Facebook Answers in that sense. However, Quora goes further than this. Quora is basically documenting knowledge through questions and answers and giving users an easy way to find it. Think of it as a knowledge base built by people for people.

Besides that Quora also provides a platform for users to collaborate and make things better. For example, if one person asks a question, a second person can edit it to make it more descriptive or frame it in a proper way. Likewise, when one person answers a question, other users can suggest edits to the answer. By using the collaborative features on Quora, people can improve the quality of the knowledge that is accumulated.

Quora is also a continuous source of knowledge by giving every user the opportunity to add their answer to any question. This way newer and possibly better answers can always be added.

As many people think, Quora is not at all redundant as it lets you choose which topics you want to follow and only shows questions related to those topics. For example, if you want to know more about Startup, you can follow the Startup topic and you will be shown questions and answers

This is the most basic definition of what Quora does in my opinion.

Is Quora a Social Networking Platform?

Yes and No. Quora isn’t really a social networking site, but it does borrow quite a few features from sites like Twitter, Facebook, and maybe a few others.

For example, Quora has an option to allow users to follow other users, a feature similar to Twitter. As well as allowing users to comment and vote for answers, this feature is seen on sites like Reddit and Digg. It also has an Inbox feature that can be associated with LinkedIn or Facebook Messages. Quora also allows users to subscribe to questions without asking or answering them, so you’ll know when new answers have been added.

Overall, there are several aspects of Quora that make it look like a social networking site. However, these features are not Quora’s USP. These features basically provide a better community experience for Quora users.

What do you think about Quora? Have you used it? Do you like it? Feel free to let me know what you think about this service through your comments.

Source: Techie Buzz