Sine Qua Non

Twitter

Follow us on Twitter »

Quora set to add new dimension to social space in 2011

Business | Technology

There’s something about January. Something that evokes a desire to explore new territories, discover new music or a new year’s resolution to expand one’s knowledge bank. So it is with this January mentality that I took my first tentative steps into the latest social media trend Quora this week.

Fuelled by traditional and online media buzz in the run up to the New Year, Quora has since become ‘the thing to watch in 2011’ with many social media observers and online influencers becoming early adopters. Whether its long-term potential can sustain this early interest remains to be seen but on early inspection, Quora seems to be a neat fusion of Twitter and Linked In Groups, both in terms of its look and feel and its practical use.

It has long been discussed that the future development of sites such as Twitter lies in its ability to group together people of similar interests and professions. LinkedIn Groups has already started the shift in this direction with industry-specific segmentation. Quora takes this further and does so in a tidy fashion, enabling the users to follow people as well as topics, retaining a wider community feel but with a focus on personal interests.

The Question and Answer premise of Quora is nothing new but the ability to get immediate responses to specific questions from industry experts or opinion leaders is certainly a precedent. It is this aspect of Quora that could see it become the default search tool for people wanting to know about very specific issues. Whether it is an individual wanting to know more about any given subject, a journalist looking to gather opinion, or brands looking for reaction or direction on products or services, Quora could become a one-stop shop.

The ‘ifs’ and ‘coulds’ remain because Quora is still a novelty and its full potential, as with all social platforms, will only be shaped by its users. Media hype has started to move Quora from a niche group of tech savvy users into a more mainstream audience. It is going to be fascinating to see how Quora develops from here and how it will deal with the inevitable influx of users – those with an interest in seeing how it works as well as those who are interested in seeing how it can be compromised. Content will always be king, so Quora’s first pre-emptive move has to be how it keeps the questions and answers spam-free, relevant and useful. If it can get that right, we are in for something special.

Chris Hughes

Comment on this Article >

Comments