5 ms·

You can count me as one of the long-term Quora detractors. To me, it's a good example of the "bubble effect". Everyone in the Valley thinks its huge because eve

by cletus 15y ago

You can count me as one of the long-term Quora detractors. To me, it's a good example of the "bubble effect". Everyone in the Valley thinks its huge because everyone in the Valley uses it. No one outside the Valley does (figuratively speaking). It's a thin social layer on what's just a Q&A site not that different to Yahoo Answers, which I guess is fine but I just don't see it going mainstream. As an aside, I've always said--and I maintain--that I don't see Stackoverflow/StackExchange going mainstream either. Ultimately I see the end for both companies being a Google or Facebook buyout in the $X00,000,000 range, which I think says more about the overall market than it does their inherent value. EDIT: let me add regarding SO/SE that I think the SO model works great for programmers but my point--which I didn't put very well--was that I don't see that same tagging/voting/self-organizing model necessarily translating that well to other verticals. I guess time will tell.

macavity23 15y ago
Although I agree that Stack[Overflow|Exchange] will never been a mainstream site, I think there's an important difference in that SO is very useful to the community that it does support. They've really nailed the technical question 'problem' to the point that my day-to-day job would be measurably harder without it, and so as the poster says I can easily imagine paying for added-value features there. Quora, not so much. Although I really doubt the solution is to add more eye-candy to the page design. Sheesh, web designers. ;-)
- sgdesign 15y ago
  Well, to be fair there was a certain kind of logic behind my "shiny buttons will save Quora" argument: 1) Pivot 2) Redesign 3) Existing members come for the redesign and stay for the new Quora, thus giving the new strategy a chance. Although you could say that when all you have is Photoshop, every site looks like it needs to be redesigned… ;)
- codingthebeach 15y ago
  From the article: "The site is visually bland: there’s barely any color or images, and you won’t find any effect fancier than rounded corners." Somebody please save us from the attack of web design. If I see another gradient rounded flashing Javascript-enabled button for gradient rounded flashing Javascript-enabled buttons' sake, I'm gonna hurl, Wayne's World style.
  - dasil003 15y ago
    Flashing buttons? Sounds like you're frequenting some dark alleys. Make sure your anti-virus is up-to-date.
  - mgkimsal 15y ago
    agreed. look at craigslist - about as unsexy a design as you could imagine, but it solves real problems for people, and they use it constantly. quora - not so much, and fancier buttons and UI won't really change that.
    - jamesteow 15y ago
      His point wasn't about making it more fancy but rather, less sterile. Even Craigslist has more character.
Hisoka 15y ago
StackOverflow, because of its subject matter will never be mainstream, but I it's immensely popular among those in the programming community, and that's a pretty huge market.
- quanticle 15y ago
  I don't think StackOverflow is really trying to be a general, mainstream Q&A site, largely because there is no mainstream when it comes to Q&A sites. When you go to one of these sites, you don't want your question to be answered by a generalist, you want a specialist with domain knowledge to answer your question. Looking at it that way, the StackExchange model makes sense. Make a number of very specialized communities that experts can congregate in. Make a points system that rewards experts for their time and effort. Finally, invest in making the site friendly to search engines, so that non-experts can find the experts and ask questions of them.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- cruise02 15y ago
  Right, Stack Overflow itself can never be mainstream by definition, but cletus is talking about the (slightly) larger Stack Exchange network of Q&A sites that SO is a part of.
Hisoka 15y ago
StackOverflow, because of its subject matter will never be mainstream, but I it's immensely popular among those in the programming community, and that's a pretty huge market.
edanm 15y ago
Regarding Stack Exchange, I understand (and agree) with your view that there are lots of verticals it won't work in. But do you think programming is the only vertical in which it can work? My view is, the model will work well for some places, badly for others, and that's perfectly fine - for the places it works well, it works really well. For the others, other solutions will be thought up.
phlux 15y ago
I have been a long time user of Quora, as well as a long time detractor. While I think there is a very interesting critical mass of user, I agree that it is largely a valley audience. There are some really interesting answers on there, which I have found valuable; but I have maintained that its flaws are too big and too many for my tastes: * The UX sucks. While they have made some minor improvements - it still sucks. I had posted about this prior on Quora as well. It was also made worse by their constant self-back-patting on the UX/UI where they were claiming that the users were too stupid to understand the design decisions they made, and that they were in fact design decisions not mistakes. They were constantly praising how they learned so much about good UX from facebook. * The lack of threading is retarded, and makes discussion impossible. The fact that you can only have 1 sub level (a comment) is just wrong. The claim was they didnt want discussion and that the answers to the questions were meant to be definitive thus not needing discussion. BS. * The colors and fonts/sizing used is horrid and makes it very difficult to navigate. The use of 'facebook blue' the light grey and then the bold black are all in the wrong order. (http://i.imgur.com/Y9EPV.png http://i.imgur.com/Y9EPV.png) It doesnt work for quick visual scanning. * The entry boxes are broken; when you begin to type something, it hijacks your cursor and disabled the backspace. e.g. if you try to type @username or http - it makes it difficult to fix typos. * it is impossible to navigate topics clearly, sort or save any meaningful data. You cannot tag or vote in a meaningful way so as to promote answers either. You can only browse a subscription/follow feed in a linear 1-dimensional manner. Ultimately, Quora is a one dimensional service which had a lot of early hype due to its founders and early adopters having real influence in the valley. There is good info, but the architecture of the sites containment of that data is like the work of a talented child with a lot of potential being praised for their genius too early and resulting in stagnation and reinforcement of an idea that started as a good seed, but was ultimately not thought out well enough to scale - ultimately feeling dated and as more-broken-than-not implementation. So, I go there about once a week for a quick scan - or travel over via HN links to good posts, but I spend very little time on there any longer. The information value in exchange for my time there is too low any more.
cruise02 15y ago
I think Stack Exchange has a much better chance of going mainstream, but by going through the side entrance, not through the front door. Some of the SE sites will fail (a handful already have), but others will be successful in their niche. By keeping the focus small in each community, they're making much more useful sites. I think a lot of people will end up using SE sites without really knowing or caring that they're at an SE site. Disclosure: As a Stack Overflow moderator, I'm quite biased.
jdp23 15y ago
I'm also a long-term Quora skeptic -- and have been documenting the reasons why in the comments at http://bit.ly/imitates#comments http://bit.ly/imitates#comments for the last six months. Agreed about the likely outcome; hard to know about the valuation. And agreed with the other commenters that StackExchange/StackOverflow is in a very different situation. It's hard to know whether or not they'll get to "mainstream"; but they don't necessarily have to in order to be a very successful company. And they've got a huge advantage of several topics where they are one of the best resources on the web -- and an much larger active community than Quora.
- biot 15y ago
  Unobfuscated non-Libyan link: http://www.talesfromthe.net/jon/?p=2332#comments http://www.talesfromthe.net/jon/?p=2332#comments
ams6110 15y ago
No one outside the Valley [uses Quora] I'll validate that: I've barely heard of it. I've never visited, and it never seems to turn up in Google or DDG searches.
- jaredmck 15y ago
  It doesn't show up in searches because for a long time the whole site was noindexed. Think they changed this, but considering the whole site is designed much like an SEO spamfest (tags, ridiculous hierarchy), it didn't make a whole lot of sense.
adityakothadiya 15y ago
"Everyone in the Valley thinks its huge because everyone in the Valley uses it." My techie friends from Silicon Valley also don't use Quora. So don't worry, not everyone in Valley uses it. I think very few % of Valley users are using it.
ilamont 15y ago
"Ultimately I see the end for both companies being a Google or Facebook buyout in the $X00,000,000 range, which I think says more about the overall market than it does their inherent value." Can you explain how a site like Quora would be worth at least $100,000,000 to Google, Facebook, or anyone else?
- jdp23 15y ago
  Aardvark's acquisition by Google for $50M about 18 months, back when the market wasn't as bubblicious as it is now, is one comparable. http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2010/02/12/aardvark-google/ http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2010/02/12/aardvark-google/ looks at why that valuation arguably made sense. Aardvark had $6M invested, Quora's got $11M. Like I said in my other comment, not sure what valuation makes sense, so I'm not convinced it'll be in the X00,000,000 range... but it's not impossible.
jaredmck 15y ago
Isn't stack overflow in the top 100 sites in terms of traffic? While it might not be mainstream, it's already huge.
- nl 15y ago
  You are basing that on Alexa? Alexa will always over-report sites like Stackoverflow, because lots of SEO people (who use the Alexa toolbar) use it. Google trends gives a better view. Here is is related to other sites that (according to Alexa) have similar traffic: http://trends.google.com/websites?q=stackoverflow.com%2C+douban.com%2C+sogou.com%2C+imageshack.us%2C+hao123.com&geo=all&date=all&sort=0 http://trends.google.com/websites?q=stackoverflow.com%2C+dou...
tzs 15y ago
math.stackexchange.com and mathoverflow.net are working well, from what I can see, so the model works in at least one area outside of programming. Mathoverflow has become a place where serious mathematicians go to discuss research level mathematics, and some of the world's top mathematicians ask and answer questions there (including at least a couple Field's medalists).
clb22 15y ago
FYI, I'm very engaged with Quora, and I live in Chile http://www.quora.com/Carlos-Leiva-Burotto http://www.quora.com/Carlos-Leiva-Burotto and through Quora I made networking with a guy who works on Mauritian Island.. that's in the front of Madagascar!!!! Not even through Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Flickr, etc I engaged with someone from that place!! So Quora is definitely a worldwide tool and the active members are not only people from SV. You should definitely open your mind to not see only the things that you want to see.
revorad 15y ago
How does a 9-figure exit prediction make you a Quora detractor?

by cletus 15y ago

macavity23 15y ago

Although I agree that Stack[Overflow|Exchange] will never been a mainstream site, I think there's an important difference in that SO is very useful to the community that it does support. They've really nailed the technical question 'problem' to the point that my day-to-day job would be measurably harder without it, and so as the poster says I can easily imagine paying for added-value features there. Quora, not so much. Although I really doubt the solution is to add more eye-candy to the page design. Sheesh, web designers. ;-)

sgdesign 15y ago
Well, to be fair there was a certain kind of logic behind my "shiny buttons will save Quora" argument: 1) Pivot 2) Redesign 3) Existing members come for the redesign and stay for the new Quora, thus giving the new strategy a chance. Although you could say that when all you have is Photoshop, every site looks like it needs to be redesigned… ;)
codingthebeach 15y ago
From the article: "The site is visually bland: there’s barely any color or images, and you won’t find any effect fancier than rounded corners." Somebody please save us from the attack of web design. If I see another gradient rounded flashing Javascript-enabled button for gradient rounded flashing Javascript-enabled buttons' sake, I'm gonna hurl, Wayne's World style.
- dasil003 15y ago
  Flashing buttons? Sounds like you're frequenting some dark alleys. Make sure your anti-virus is up-to-date.
- mgkimsal 15y ago
  agreed. look at craigslist - about as unsexy a design as you could imagine, but it solves real problems for people, and they use it constantly. quora - not so much, and fancier buttons and UI won't really change that.
  - jamesteow 15y ago
    His point wasn't about making it more fancy but rather, less sterile. Even Craigslist has more character.

Hisoka 15y ago

StackOverflow, because of its subject matter will never be mainstream, but I it's immensely popular among those in the programming community, and that's a pretty huge market.

quanticle 15y ago
I don't think StackOverflow is really trying to be a general, mainstream Q&A site, largely because there is no mainstream when it comes to Q&A sites. When you go to one of these sites, you don't want your question to be answered by a generalist, you want a specialist with domain knowledge to answer your question. Looking at it that way, the StackExchange model makes sense. Make a number of very specialized communities that experts can congregate in. Make a points system that rewards experts for their time and effort. Finally, invest in making the site friendly to search engines, so that non-experts can find the experts and ask questions of them.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
cruise02 15y ago
Right, Stack Overflow itself can never be mainstream by definition, but cletus is talking about the (slightly) larger Stack Exchange network of Q&A sites that SO is a part of.

Hisoka 15y ago

StackOverflow, because of its subject matter will never be mainstream, but I it's immensely popular among those in the programming community, and that's a pretty huge market.

edanm 15y ago

Regarding Stack Exchange, I understand (and agree) with your view that there are lots of verticals it won't work in. But do you think programming is the only vertical in which it can work? My view is, the model will work well for some places, badly for others, and that's perfectly fine - for the places it works well, it works really well. For the others, other solutions will be thought up.

phlux 15y ago

I have been a long time user of Quora, as well as a long time detractor. While I think there is a very interesting critical mass of user, I agree that it is largely a valley audience. There are some really interesting answers on there, which I have found valuable; but I have maintained that its flaws are too big and too many for my tastes: * The UX sucks. While they have made some minor improvements - it still sucks. I had posted about this prior on Quora as well. It was also made worse by their constant self-back-patting on the UX/UI where they were claiming that the users were too stupid to understand the design decisions they made, and that they were in fact design decisions not mistakes. They were constantly praising how they learned so much about good UX from facebook. * The lack of threading is retarded, and makes discussion impossible. The fact that you can only have 1 sub level (a comment) is just wrong. The claim was they didnt want discussion and that the answers to the questions were meant to be definitive thus not needing discussion. BS. * The colors and fonts/sizing used is horrid and makes it very difficult to navigate. The use of 'facebook blue' the light grey and then the bold black are all in the wrong order. (http://i.imgur.com/Y9EPV.png http://i.imgur.com/Y9EPV.png) It doesnt work for quick visual scanning. * The entry boxes are broken; when you begin to type something, it hijacks your cursor and disabled the backspace. e.g. if you try to type @username or http - it makes it difficult to fix typos. * it is impossible to navigate topics clearly, sort or save any meaningful data. You cannot tag or vote in a meaningful way so as to promote answers either. You can only browse a subscription/follow feed in a linear 1-dimensional manner. Ultimately, Quora is a one dimensional service which had a lot of early hype due to its founders and early adopters having real influence in the valley. There is good info, but the architecture of the sites containment of that data is like the work of a talented child with a lot of potential being praised for their genius too early and resulting in stagnation and reinforcement of an idea that started as a good seed, but was ultimately not thought out well enough to scale - ultimately feeling dated and as more-broken-than-not implementation. So, I go there about once a week for a quick scan - or travel over via HN links to good posts, but I spend very little time on there any longer. The information value in exchange for my time there is too low any more.

cruise02 15y ago

I think Stack Exchange has a much better chance of going mainstream, but by going through the side entrance, not through the front door. Some of the SE sites will fail (a handful already have), but others will be successful in their niche. By keeping the focus small in each community, they're making much more useful sites. I think a lot of people will end up using SE sites without really knowing or caring that they're at an SE site. Disclosure: As a Stack Overflow moderator, I'm quite biased.

jdp23 15y ago

I'm also a long-term Quora skeptic -- and have been documenting the reasons why in the comments at http://bit.ly/imitates#comments http://bit.ly/imitates#comments for the last six months. Agreed about the likely outcome; hard to know about the valuation. And agreed with the other commenters that StackExchange/StackOverflow is in a very different situation. It's hard to know whether or not they'll get to "mainstream"; but they don't necessarily have to in order to be a very successful company. And they've got a huge advantage of several topics where they are one of the best resources on the web -- and an much larger active community than Quora.

biot 15y ago
Unobfuscated non-Libyan link: http://www.talesfromthe.net/jon/?p=2332#comments http://www.talesfromthe.net/jon/?p=2332#comments

ams6110 15y ago

No one outside the Valley [uses Quora] I'll validate that: I've barely heard of it. I've never visited, and it never seems to turn up in Google or DDG searches.

jaredmck 15y ago
It doesn't show up in searches because for a long time the whole site was noindexed. Think they changed this, but considering the whole site is designed much like an SEO spamfest (tags, ridiculous hierarchy), it didn't make a whole lot of sense.

adityakothadiya 15y ago

"Everyone in the Valley thinks its huge because everyone in the Valley uses it." My techie friends from Silicon Valley also don't use Quora. So don't worry, not everyone in Valley uses it. I think very few % of Valley users are using it.

ilamont 15y ago

"Ultimately I see the end for both companies being a Google or Facebook buyout in the $X00,000,000 range, which I think says more about the overall market than it does their inherent value." Can you explain how a site like Quora would be worth at least $100,000,000 to Google, Facebook, or anyone else?

jdp23 15y ago
Aardvark's acquisition by Google for $50M about 18 months, back when the market wasn't as bubblicious as it is now, is one comparable. http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2010/02/12/aardvark-google/ http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2010/02/12/aardvark-google/ looks at why that valuation arguably made sense. Aardvark had $6M invested, Quora's got $11M. Like I said in my other comment, not sure what valuation makes sense, so I'm not convinced it'll be in the X00,000,000 range... but it's not impossible.

jaredmck 15y ago

Isn't stack overflow in the top 100 sites in terms of traffic? While it might not be mainstream, it's already huge.

nl 15y ago
You are basing that on Alexa? Alexa will always over-report sites like Stackoverflow, because lots of SEO people (who use the Alexa toolbar) use it. Google trends gives a better view. Here is is related to other sites that (according to Alexa) have similar traffic: http://trends.google.com/websites?q=stackoverflow.com%2C+douban.com%2C+sogou.com%2C+imageshack.us%2C+hao123.com&geo=all&date=all&sort=0 http://trends.google.com/websites?q=stackoverflow.com%2C+dou...

tzs 15y ago

math.stackexchange.com and mathoverflow.net are working well, from what I can see, so the model works in at least one area outside of programming. Mathoverflow has become a place where serious mathematicians go to discuss research level mathematics, and some of the world's top mathematicians ask and answer questions there (including at least a couple Field's medalists).

clb22 15y ago

FYI, I'm very engaged with Quora, and I live in Chile http://www.quora.com/Carlos-Leiva-Burotto http://www.quora.com/Carlos-Leiva-Burotto and through Quora I made networking with a guy who works on Mauritian Island.. that's in the front of Madagascar!!!! Not even through Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Flickr, etc I engaged with someone from that place!! So Quora is definitely a worldwide tool and the active members are not only people from SV. You should definitely open your mind to not see only the things that you want to see.

revorad 15y ago

How does a 9-figure exit prediction make you a Quora detractor?