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Direction probably. Quora has floundered for nearly 5 years, burned millions of dollars and still has a questionable product. Meanwhile Stack Exchange has been
by meritt 12y ago
Direction probably. Quora has floundered for nearly 5 years, burned millions of dollars and still has a questionable product.
Meanwhile Stack Exchange has been around only a year longer, a fraction of the funding, and pretty well owns the entire question-answer niche.
- ProAm 12y agoIve not used Quora, what is their struture like? SE is fairly fragemented now, is Quora similiar?
- mbesto 12y agoI'm not sure if you were insinuating that SE's fragmentation was a bad thing. If you are, SE actively fragment's itself for a reason. Watch Spolsky talk about it here: http://vimeo.com/37309773 http://vimeo.com/37309773 Quora's non-fragmentation is it's ultimate downfall. I'm all bull on SE and bear on Quora.
- tyang 12y agoK. How do you express those views? Are you buying SE shares via MicroVentures, etc.? How do you go short Quora?
- mbesto 12y agoI meant metaphorically. Both companies are capitalized privately.
- ProAm 12y agoIm not sure yet if the SE fragmentation is a good thing or bad yet. From one perspective I see where they are coming from and why they are doing it. But in today's age of IT where the specialists is dead and people are more-or-less required to be an expert generalist it is very frustrating to use SE. I find myself more or less giving up when a question gets migrated to a SE Im not a 'member' of yet (they should really just make all users IDs members on all their sites whether people use them or not). Whether you are a webmaster, server admin, programmer, general PC user or just want to ask a general question about how SE works, I shouldn't need to go so many places. It's really 50-50 in my mind if they are doing a good thing or bad (and it probably doesnt matter in the end) But I have never used Quora, so I know nothing about it beyond getting the blurred webpage when you are not a member there. Ill check out that video now.
- adventured 12y agoStack Exchange owns the question & answer niche? I don't hardly think so. Yahoo Answers, as bad as it is, is massive, and shows up throughout Google's top results; ditto answers.com; and Quora is a top 500 site. Stack has seven sites getting at least 100,000 visits per day. One is a break out homerun (Stack Overflow obviously), and it drastically dwarfs the other sites. All but a few of their top 20+ sites are strictly technology focused, and the others are geek friendly (math and video games), so they cross over conveniently. Most of their network is flailing. Photography is 3 years old and gets a whopping seven questions per day - that's what most of their network looks like. Stack doesn't even remotely own the Q&A category. They own one piece of it, and will never own anything more than that, because they can't translate success in technical Q&A to other categories well. You can beat StackExchange at any given of their smaller niche sites, because they can't do them as well as someone that is dedicated to just that niche - the same reason Quora et al can't compete with Stack Overflow.
- meritt 12y agoFair points. Quora though seems pretty well aimed at the same subcategories which Stack Exchange excels.
- collyw 12y agoTo me Quora excels at the areas where Stack Exchange fails miserably. Intelligent discussion over a subject (rather than "closed as not constructive").
- codinghorror 12y agoSure -- you're right that the SE engine is definitely only good at specific things (namely, fact/data/science based questions), but it is arguably the best in the world at those particular things. What is the Quora engine the best in the world at? I'd look at growth, too. Even the less popular SE sites grow at very respectable rates. How much is Quora growing?
- namenotrequired 12y ago
- gedrap 12y agoI think Quora is a totally different product, content wise. You don't go to Quora for programming help unless it's hello world in php. You go there for /r/iama type of questions. Or it's just my usage, largely influenced by the weekly email.
- benwilber0 12y agoReddit is devouring that use-case. I'm not sure where Quora fits in.
- jfoster 12y agoI don't use Quora very much, but I have noticed that it seems to be very focused on the identity of the person replying, and even the identity of upvoters. It feels like a great place for senior management in organisations to answer questions about topics related to their roles.
- adamnemecek 12y agoIt also feels a lot like a Quora & SV circlejerk. Idk why but for example the fact that this question http://www.quora.com/Quora-Community/What-do-the-Quorans-parents-look-like http://www.quora.com/Quora-Community/What-do-the-Quorans-par... is posed as "What do the Quorans' parents look like?" as opposed to "What do the your parents look like?" is indicative of something that I can't quite put my finger on but that I find really, really annoying.
- cookiecaper 12y agoEh, I dunno. I think it creates an egotistic atmosphere that creates problems for both participants and moderators. Someone is much less likely to admit they were wrong or let something go when their professional headshot, real name, and high-powered corporate position is next to it. They reply because they think they get it, find out they were wrong, but feel they risk embarrassment for themselves and their employer if they admit their mistake or don't vigorously self-defend. Under these conditions, you almost need a PR team to manage your Quora account.
- rokhayakebe 12y agoThere are 20 million programmers in the world, that is the maximum S.O. can get. There are billions of people looking for just the type of answers you find on Quora. Also you go to S.O. to find a specific answer than move on, on Q you stick around and read other stuff, go back for discovery. I am not saying which one is more valuable, perhaps S.O. is more monetizable.
- benwilber0 12y agoI've followed many links to Quora but bounced every single time because of the stupid signup wall. Subsequently, I've banned them from my Google search results, same as Experts Exchange. SO and Reddit are sharing the Q&A lunch.
- ceejayoz 12y agoStackExchange has much more than just programming sites, and I've done all sorts of discovery via the "questions from other StackExchange sites" ad units and sidebars.
- mhartl 12y agothat is the maximum S.O. can get This is why they formed a parent company with a broader focus (Stack Exchange). Joel Spolsky wrote more about their thinking here: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2010/02/14.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2010/02/14.html
- GrinningFool 12y ago" There are billions of people looking for just the type of answers you find on Quora" And how many of them are going there? Every indication is "not many". "Also you go to S.O. to find a specific answer than move on, on Q you stick around and read other stuff, go back for discovery." By "you" you mean? I've visited quora maybe a dozen times, usually by following a link from an aggregator like HN. I didn't feel compelled to poke around once I got there, and the comments and replies (though they came from the people with higher reputation) generally ran the same gamut as everywhere else.
- beagle3 12y agoThat's a strawman. Don't compare Quora to Stack Overflow (which is, indeed, limited to programmers). Look at the entire Stack Exchange network.
- timdellinger 12y agostack exchange = tell me a fact quora = tell me a story