Recently, I have had an influx of Quora friend requests in my inbox. Honestly, I have not seen so many social media experts flock to a social media web site since all of my social media and search engine marketing buddies flocked to Twitter. So, I started my quest to find out exactly if Quora.com is the next social media web site to go mainstream.
When I first went to Quora.com to check it out in order to write about Quora, I was not quite sure what I was looking at. The interface for Quora.com is a very simple, and basic design consisting of a few fill in the blank lines where you can log in. Not much else to let you know what the site is about. After you sign up for an account, things are still kept very basic. After playing around on the site, and putting in keywords, you come to realize that Quora.com is a platform where people can ask and answer questions – very similar to Yahoo! Answers. The main difference between Yahoo! Answers and Quora.com is that Quora.com has a much more serious tone to it than Yahoo! Answers (even in the sections asking questions about social games, and video games).
Once you have logged in to the site, you can type in keywords to find questions on subjects that you would like to help answer. If you need a question answered, then you can type in questions as well. The search bar even gives you suggestions as you type if you’re not quite sure what subject your keywords would fall under. The keyword suggestions are also great for finding out which questions have already been asked that relate to your keywords.
I did a few tests, and found that if I check on keywords for rather serious topics such as the presidency, or the arms race, there were many questions to chose from to find out more information on those topics. However, if I chose a less serious topic such as “bed intruder”, there were a few questions regarding it, but nothing worth writing about. For questions that are borderline between serious and not so serious (like social gaming), there was a mix of questions asking how to better market a social game along with questions pertaining to favorite social games, and top scores. Granted, you only get what you give, but I could definitely tell that not many people were wanting to explore social gaming on a social level – ironically.
Some of the pluses for this site: if you have any serious questions that you would like to ask, you are more likely to get a serious answer to your answer here than on Yahoo! Answers. On the other side, if you are looking for something more light-hearted (ex: looking for a place to chat with others about fun online games to play), then this may not be the place for you. Overall, if you’re looking to show yourself as an expert in a particular field of knowledge then answering questions on this site would be a good way to go. As far as asking questions goes, it is probably best to stick with questions that you sincerely need an answer to (those looking for a good party game site need not apply).
Originally published on billhartzer.com
