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July 12, 2010

Quora – The Ultimate Q & A

Whether you’re looking for the best date-night restaurant in Paris, the best food cart in Portland, or just some general information about the evolutionary purpose of having dreams, you can find your answers on Quora. The question and answer service lets users post questions about any topic imaginable and receive responses from real-world experts within a matter of minutes. For people who would rather read about their favorite topics than write about them, the service also allows users to “follow” certain subjects to see instantly whenever new questions have been asked or conversations have been updated.

When you sign up with Quora, you can create a new profile or instantly link up with your preexisting Facebook or Twitter account. The application will then let you “follow” any number of preset topics, such as Food, Startups, Sports, or Travel. If you don’t see a topic that looks interesting enough on the main page, then just type in a subject that seems fun to you and start following that. Once you’ve signed up to follow certain topics, you’ll be presented with a page full of questions that are tailored to meet your interests. When you come across a question that seems intriguing, click on it to see all the responses that question has gotten so far. The answers that users have submitted are ranked based on the number of “votes” each answer has received, with the best answers showing up at the top of the page. You can leave comments underneath any answer, and vote whether the answer was helpful or not. You can also click on any author’s avatar to find out more about the person who’s opinions you’re reading and follow that user directly to receive notices whenever he or she has added new content.

If you have got something of your own to add to the site, just click “Add Question” at the top of any page and start typing away. You can answer other people’s questions by going to the bottom of the question page, or you can mark the page as “Answer Later” and add in your response when you have more free time. Any answer you give can be left anonymously if you wish to remain private, or you can choose to monitor particularly interesting questions to find out when new answers have been added. Thanks to its high caliber of expert users, you can get thoughtful responses to questions about nearly any topic under the sun when you use Quora.

Practical Uses:

  • Get restaurant recommendations before your next trip
  • Settle a bet with a friend by getting unbiased answers about any topic imaginable
  • Decide which book to read next based on what other Quora users think
  • Share your knowledge of ancient Roman history by answering questions about the topic on the site

Insider Tips:

  • Post answers anonymously to protect your identity
  • Create a summary of all the answers to a question with an internal wiki-page
  • Monitor a question to receive notification when new answers have been added
  • Leave a comment underneath anyone’s answer

What we liked:

  • Getting started is really easy and quick
  • Quora boasts high quality content thanks to the expertise of users on the site
  • You can settle any bets by finding the answer to your question on Quora
  • Following specific topics is a great way to stay up to date on what is going on within certain industries

What we didn’t like:

  • Although the caliber of content is very high right now, it could decrease slightly as more users start visiting the site

Alternatives:

Company Info:

  • Launched: June 2010
  • Privately Held
  • Headquarters: Palo Alto, California
  • Founded by: Adam D’Angelo and Charlie Cheever
  • Web site: http://www.quora.com

Costs:

  • Free

Comments

  1. Nick Tulip

    I am surprised that you didn’t compare it with StackOverflow or any of their other products.

  2. Asshu

    Peerpong is other website which is compared to Quora and Aardvark .
    Yahoo answers is considered as Kindergarten’s Qn A Site 🙂

    • Good to see real expertise on display. Your contruitbion is most welcome.

  3. he question and answer service lets users post questions about any topic imaginable and receive responses from real-world experts within a matter of minutes

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  5. I believe that the premise is that the answers that users will be getting is from the so called experts. However, I feel that with a proper knowledge about search engines, Google is able to provide with good results as well. There are countless blogs with experts that offer free advice as well. It is up to the user to discern all the different answers to find the best one.

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