I have no idea how to explain Quora to other people who like to try software. Borrowing a turn from It’s this for That, I’ll try to explain with a few examples:
- It’s a Question and Answer site for People Who Don’t Normally Answer Questions;
- It’s Facebook for Encyclopedias;
- It’s a UX Mess for people who like to complain about complicated sites.
In all seriousness though, I think Quora is quite interesting because it allows you to ask questions directly to people and allows them to respond in more than 140 characters; it’s easy to share your answers; and it’s social and fun to follow questions.
Long-form answers are still interesting
In a world where more and more answers have to be under 140 characters, it’s great to have a place where you can create long-form answers that are not quite blog posts. Quora is the perfect place to ask a question that will help you to build a blog post or answer a complicated question without writing a complete blog post.
Sharing Knowledge is Good
Quora is a fun way to share knowledge, and already I’ve learned some random things I wouldn’t know directly from Quora, like the conversion rate of AOL Customers to those darned CDs, and I’ve also taken the opportunity to share answers and ask questions on Twitter and Facebook.
It’s Fun to Follow Questions on Quora
Where else can you find a question posed to (and answered by) Steve Case of the aforementioned AOL marketing campaign? Quora allows you to ask and answer questions, but also to follow the questions asked and answered by other people. You can watch conversations evolve, decide to participate, or not.
Ultimately, Quora’s interesting to me to ask and answer questions, share knowledge, and to find out what other people are talking about (without having to read a million blogs every day.)
Why (and how) are you using Quora?
Information Maven 