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Quora and the Quest to Answer Every Question

20 points by jhonovich 12y ago

jhonovich 12y ago
Does Quora generate any revenue at all?
- thomasfoster96 12y ago
  Nil, but ads are pretty much guaranteed to arrive during 2015.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
al2o3cr 12y ago
"That’s because Quora needs at least a few data points if it’s going to offer a good set of content to new users and keep them interested, instead of confused, as to what the purpose of the site is." Oh, I think the "you must log in or else we'll hide the answers" establishes quite clearly what the purpose of the site is - and since that purpose is "monetize the ever-loving bejeebus out of people writing answers for free", that's why I close the tab when I hit a Quora result...
- joelthelion 12y ago
  It's also what's going to kill the site. Which is a pitty, because it fits a good niche, between Stack Exchange which needlessly restricts the questions that can be asked, and Yahoo Answers which is just too low quality. Personnal message to the HN crowd: if you start a Quora clone that is more open, quite a few people might switch. I think I would, if the site works well enough.
  - jobvandervoort 12y ago
    What will kill the site exactly? I don't see that many problems with advertisement as a monetization strategy. That has worked well for Google, Facebook, etc. I struggle to think of an alternative method of scaling something like this, other than donations (Wikipedia). If you want to target everyone, ads are your best bet. edit: the point is having to log in, rather than the advertisement, that'll kill the site. I'm not sure about that choice either, but similar arguments apply.
  - jpatokal 12y ago
    That "needlessly" is very debatable. There's a reason you don't want to allow questions "Who's better, Republicans or Democrats?" or "What's the best laptop?", and it's arguably one of the main reasons Stack Exchange isn't a cesspool like Yahoo Answers is.
sparkzilla 12y ago
I wonder how much Quora paid for that fluff piece. The real question is: why is Quora not making money now? Quora has been going since 2009 with zero revenues, and has over 100 staff burning through investment money. If they could be making money already they would, and the lack of proper metrics is extremely suspicious. It's highly likely that answers are not as monetizable as the company thinks. If they were, they'd be doing it already. I also think that founders that try to get rich off of the free labor of contributors have no future. I wrote an analysis of this company a while back, but it still stands: http://newslines.org/blog/why-quora-joined-y-combinator/ http://newslines.org/blog/why-quora-joined-y-combinator/
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
programminggeek 12y ago
I am guessing the reason they aren't putting ads on Quora yet it would limit their ability to raise money. Uncertainty drives the theoretical value higher because while the average CPM on ads might be say $10, they can project because of their higher quality content that they will be able to charge $25 or $50 CPM or something like that. So, they can sell projections and vanity metrics instead of actual revenue to investors. Also, not having ads means they are totally product focused, not focused on ad sales and driving up their ad rates. That helps them keep their team small so they don't burn through money hiring to build up and sell their own advertising system. Last, not putting ads on their site insulates them from the ups and downs of the advertising market. If ad prices drop one quarter, their future projections have to change a lot because of the real numbers. Long story short, I don't think if Quora put AdSense on their site that they would have been able to raise $161 million dollars.

20 points by jhonovich 12y ago

jhonovich 12y ago

Does Quora generate any revenue at all?

thomasfoster96 12y ago
Nil, but ads are pretty much guaranteed to arrive during 2015.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

al2o3cr 12y ago

"That’s because Quora needs at least a few data points if it’s going to offer a good set of content to new users and keep them interested, instead of confused, as to what the purpose of the site is." Oh, I think the "you must log in or else we'll hide the answers" establishes quite clearly what the purpose of the site is - and since that purpose is "monetize the ever-loving bejeebus out of people writing answers for free", that's why I close the tab when I hit a Quora result...

joelthelion 12y ago
It's also what's going to kill the site. Which is a pitty, because it fits a good niche, between Stack Exchange which needlessly restricts the questions that can be asked, and Yahoo Answers which is just too low quality. Personnal message to the HN crowd: if you start a Quora clone that is more open, quite a few people might switch. I think I would, if the site works well enough.
- jobvandervoort 12y ago
  What will kill the site exactly? I don't see that many problems with advertisement as a monetization strategy. That has worked well for Google, Facebook, etc. I struggle to think of an alternative method of scaling something like this, other than donations (Wikipedia). If you want to target everyone, ads are your best bet. edit: the point is having to log in, rather than the advertisement, that'll kill the site. I'm not sure about that choice either, but similar arguments apply.
- jpatokal 12y ago
  That "needlessly" is very debatable. There's a reason you don't want to allow questions "Who's better, Republicans or Democrats?" or "What's the best laptop?", and it's arguably one of the main reasons Stack Exchange isn't a cesspool like Yahoo Answers is.

sparkzilla 12y ago

I wonder how much Quora paid for that fluff piece. The real question is: why is Quora not making money now? Quora has been going since 2009 with zero revenues, and has over 100 staff burning through investment money. If they could be making money already they would, and the lack of proper metrics is extremely suspicious. It's highly likely that answers are not as monetizable as the company thinks. If they were, they'd be doing it already. I also think that founders that try to get rich off of the free labor of contributors have no future. I wrote an analysis of this company a while back, but it still stands: http://newslines.org/blog/why-quora-joined-y-combinator/ http://newslines.org/blog/why-quora-joined-y-combinator/

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

programminggeek 12y ago

I am guessing the reason they aren't putting ads on Quora yet it would limit their ability to raise money. Uncertainty drives the theoretical value higher because while the average CPM on ads might be say $10, they can project because of their higher quality content that they will be able to charge $25 or $50 CPM or something like that. So, they can sell projections and vanity metrics instead of actual revenue to investors. Also, not having ads means they are totally product focused, not focused on ad sales and driving up their ad rates. That helps them keep their team small so they don't burn through money hiring to build up and sell their own advertising system. Last, not putting ads on their site insulates them from the ups and downs of the advertising market. If ad prices drop one quarter, their future projections have to change a lot because of the real numbers. Long story short, I don't think if Quora put AdSense on their site that they would have been able to raise $161 million dollars.