8 ms·

Why Quora Will Never Be as Big as Twitter

12 points by kingsidharth 16y ago

StavrosK 16y ago
"Why apples will never be as tasty as oranges."
plnewman 16y ago
The author makes that sound like a criticism. A site or service can be valuable without being "big". The thing that I like about Quora is that its easy to identify notable people, which is lacking from other sites. I think Quora could actually become a pay service and do OK.
- fooandbarify 16y ago
  I agree. I don't really want Quora to become as big as Twitter, because then it would become filled with garbage just like Twitter. (Weird, that sounds crankier than I want it to.) I'd gladly pay to keep Quora a bit more "exclusive" for lack of a better term.
citricsquid 16y ago
Twitter can be useful (or at least they want to use it) to billions of people, the service is what you make of it. The same can be said of Facebook or Tumblr, but Quora? Not so much. It has no mainstream appeal. The fact that this article needed to be written is surely enough evidence that everyone is clamouring to find the next social media darling that they'll grasp at anything that shows a hint of being popular and try and force it.
kleinsch 16y ago
I'm personally not sure if Quora will ever be bigger than Twitter, but I do think they have a potential advantage in the fact that user who ask questions are looking for answers when using their service. It's similar to the difference in value of search ads vs display ads. Getting an ad in front of someone who's searching for something specific is a hell of a lot more valuable than putting that same ad in front of someone while they're browsing. Most usage of Twitter is browsing, while Quora users (at least the ones asking or researching questions) seem similar to searchers, so that portion of their traffic may be much more valuable, depending on how successful they are at monetizing it. One problem with this theory is that some of Quora's traffic right now (don't know the proportion, but I'd assume it's high in terms of page views) is users answering questions or browsing updates from friends, who fit more into the browsers mold than searchers. I think they're going to have the same difficulty monetizing that portion that Twitter is.
SriniK 16y ago
Comments like this are common for most any website/product. Remember everyone including tc mentioned that twitter was pointless. Wait for few years, as long as they stick to their game, people will find use cases.
- benologist 16y ago
  Twitter was something new though, Quora's pretty late to the q&a party.
- kokoito 16y ago
  Twitter is still pointless. Or am I missing something here?
nicksergeant 16y ago
Comparing Quora to Twitter is massively premature. Quora's not even better than Stack Overflow, or even Answers.com. Riddled with annoyances, the only thing I ever hear about Quora on Twitter is something that drives someone crazy.
- Swannie 16y ago
  I agree. I'm not sure what the whole buzz about Q&A is right now. Stack Overflow certainly fills a niche that had, before, been filled by lots of independent "specialist" forums. Having that community under one roof is great, there are a lot of subjects with strong similarities. The badges system appears to allow good self moderation. The value in Quora was the presence of an unusually large number of "over achievers". Most of the people on there are doing very well for themselves in the technology world, and found the questions interesting. Now Quora is expanding, I don't see the added value any more. Really, how is this different to all of the other q&a services on the internet. The Stack Overflow approach of creating separate communities will probably work better than Quora, whose original community is being diluted, not expanded.
ig1 16y ago
The whole premises of this article is that in-depth Q&A can't have mainstream appeal, which is just wrong. Look at the magazine racks at your local store to see what's mainstream. Look at what people pay money to read. Now tell me there's no market for Celebrity Q&A or Music industry Q&A.
erik_landerholm 16y ago
(yahoo_answers || answers_dot_com) + follow == fail
- SpikeGronim 16y ago
  (concentric elite growth strategy || answers filtered by my friends) + email notifications == win Quora has so many respected tech industry people using it that I want to use it. That's similar to how Facebook was first Harvard only, then Ivy League, etc. - you want to be where your perceived social betters are. My Quora feed shows the topics that my friends are interested in. This is super valuable for finding information slightly outside what I would search for myself. Their email notifications keep me clicking back to the site so that I stay engaged.
  - erik_landerholm 16y ago
    yeah, it's cool right now. but, to get big they are going to have to let the 'unwashed masses' in. Expect more questions like, "why is paris hilton such a sloot?" and less about interesting topics with interesting answers. Once that happens, and it will have to happen for them to have the number of users that twitter or facebook has it will descend into yahoo answer hell. I don't see how they avoid that and get mass user adoption.
    - Swannie 16y ago
      I strongly agree.
    - SpikeGronim 16y ago
      That's very much a risk for Quora. But if they're still showing me my friends' activity that could ameliorate the problem. My friends are still going to be asking/answering questions that I am likely to be interested in.

12 points by kingsidharth 16y ago

"Why apples will never be as tasty as oranges."

The author makes that sound like a criticism. A site or service can be valuable without being "big". The thing that I like about Quora is that its easy to identify notable people, which is lacking from other sites. I think Quora could actually become a pay service and do OK.

fooandbarify 16y ago
I agree. I don't really want Quora to become as big as Twitter, because then it would become filled with garbage just like Twitter. (Weird, that sounds crankier than I want it to.) I'd gladly pay to keep Quora a bit more "exclusive" for lack of a better term.

citricsquid 16y ago

Twitter can be useful (or at least they want to use it) to billions of people, the service is what you make of it. The same can be said of Facebook or Tumblr, but Quora? Not so much. It has no mainstream appeal. The fact that this article needed to be written is surely enough evidence that everyone is clamouring to find the next social media darling that they'll grasp at anything that shows a hint of being popular and try and force it.

kleinsch 16y ago

I'm personally not sure if Quora will ever be bigger than Twitter, but I do think they have a potential advantage in the fact that user who ask questions are looking for answers when using their service. It's similar to the difference in value of search ads vs display ads. Getting an ad in front of someone who's searching for something specific is a hell of a lot more valuable than putting that same ad in front of someone while they're browsing. Most usage of Twitter is browsing, while Quora users (at least the ones asking or researching questions) seem similar to searchers, so that portion of their traffic may be much more valuable, depending on how successful they are at monetizing it. One problem with this theory is that some of Quora's traffic right now (don't know the proportion, but I'd assume it's high in terms of page views) is users answering questions or browsing updates from friends, who fit more into the browsers mold than searchers. I think they're going to have the same difficulty monetizing that portion that Twitter is.

SriniK 16y ago

Comments like this are common for most any website/product. Remember everyone including tc mentioned that twitter was pointless. Wait for few years, as long as they stick to their game, people will find use cases.

benologist 16y ago
Twitter was something new though, Quora's pretty late to the q&a party.
kokoito 16y ago
Twitter is still pointless. Or am I missing something here?

nicksergeant 16y ago

Comparing Quora to Twitter is massively premature. Quora's not even better than Stack Overflow, or even Answers.com. Riddled with annoyances, the only thing I ever hear about Quora on Twitter is something that drives someone crazy.

Swannie 16y ago
I agree. I'm not sure what the whole buzz about Q&A is right now. Stack Overflow certainly fills a niche that had, before, been filled by lots of independent "specialist" forums. Having that community under one roof is great, there are a lot of subjects with strong similarities. The badges system appears to allow good self moderation. The value in Quora was the presence of an unusually large number of "over achievers". Most of the people on there are doing very well for themselves in the technology world, and found the questions interesting. Now Quora is expanding, I don't see the added value any more. Really, how is this different to all of the other q&a services on the internet. The Stack Overflow approach of creating separate communities will probably work better than Quora, whose original community is being diluted, not expanded.

ig1 16y ago

The whole premises of this article is that in-depth Q&A can't have mainstream appeal, which is just wrong. Look at the magazine racks at your local store to see what's mainstream. Look at what people pay money to read. Now tell me there's no market for Celebrity Q&A or Music industry Q&A.

erik_landerholm 16y ago

(yahoo_answers || answers_dot_com) + follow == fail

SpikeGronim 16y ago
(concentric elite growth strategy || answers filtered by my friends) + email notifications == win Quora has so many respected tech industry people using it that I want to use it. That's similar to how Facebook was first Harvard only, then Ivy League, etc. - you want to be where your perceived social betters are. My Quora feed shows the topics that my friends are interested in. This is super valuable for finding information slightly outside what I would search for myself. Their email notifications keep me clicking back to the site so that I stay engaged.
- erik_landerholm 16y ago
  yeah, it's cool right now. but, to get big they are going to have to let the 'unwashed masses' in. Expect more questions like, "why is paris hilton such a sloot?" and less about interesting topics with interesting answers. Once that happens, and it will have to happen for them to have the number of users that twitter or facebook has it will descend into yahoo answer hell. I don't see how they avoid that and get mass user adoption.
  - Swannie 16y ago
    I strongly agree.
  - SpikeGronim 16y ago
    That's very much a risk for Quora. But if they're still showing me my friends' activity that could ameliorate the problem. My friends are still going to be asking/answering questions that I am likely to be interested in.