By Prerna Bhatia
The user base of the Q&A website, Quora, is increasing, and here’s why
Facebook is the largest social networking website around here, and most of us have been using it for a while. I have been on Facebook for six years now, and from the time we used to access it on our PCs with only 20 friends, to today, when we are always online, either through our phones or tablets, connecting with over 500 people with just one post, I have only seen it grow.
But through the years, while sharing Farmville pictures, tagging friends in ‘Bestie’ pictures, to Candy Crush requests *cringes*, cute cat videos, and “10 things you will relate to if you are a Salman fan”, Facebook has grown to be more unintelligent. “My throwback to 2015 you should be interested in, because I am cool”, and “It is Friends Day and my friends are cool” make it impersonal, and it seems as if our personal lives were on public display.
These concerns led me away from Facebook, and I joined Quora, a Question-and-Answer and blogging platform founded in 2009 by Adam D’Angelo and Charlie Cheever, two former Facebook employees.
What is Quora?
Ever wanted to know why you need water to live? Or why the ozone layer exists? Or what is the purpose of human existence? You will find every answer here. You can ask questions, post answers, add comments, suggest edits, and follow influential people.
“It connects you to everything you want to know about. It aims to be the easiest place to write new content and share content from the web. We organize people and their interests so you can find, collect and share the information most valuable to you”, wrote Adam D’Angelo, Quora Founder, on Quora, as an answer to the question “What is Quora?”.
Why Quora?
A Quoran, while comparing Facebook and Quora, wrote, “Quora makes me love people I don’t know. Facebook makes me hate people I do know.”
In this age of dynamism, people are becoming impatient by the day, and their attention span is decreasing. Thus, many people do not read, and in turn, do not write; for reading is the gateway to writing, and writing is one of the easiest and most amazing forms of self-expression. Quora will not only make you realise the things you don’t know, but also the things you do know. It gives you a platform to share your knowledge with others, and makes you believe that meaningful interpersonal relationships can be created online.
It has many experts answering questions on almost every topic under the sun, and is used to look for trending topics.
Quora in Business
Besides being used as a personal blog, Quora is increasingly being used to improve business on online platforms. More and more companies are creating their pages, and interacting with Quorans on topics besides their business, but not over-selling. It is being used to open online lines of communication, create a presence, judge the consumers’ mindset, and do extensive market research.
There is no comparing Quora and Facebook, or any other social networking site like Twitter or Instagram for that matter, because these websites serve different purposes. As a Quora user wrote, it is like “comparing a research group and a party”. But what I looked into when I joined Quora a year ago was how I wanted to spend my time on the Internet. I am still an amateur user on Quora, but it has made me realise my under knowledge on so many things, thus increasing my curiosity.
Quora is not really a conventional social network platform though some of its attributes are connected to one. You don’t just follow people, you follow content. Thus, it is more likely to show you relevant and interesting material, and block out the things you are not interested in. You are sure to learn something new every day, if not every minute, whilst on Quora.
Are you a Quoran? Tell us what you think about the website in the comments below!
