Quora lost me. It was a great place that attracted interesting people who were spending time answering insightful questions with compelling responses. Now, unfortunately, it seems to me that it has become yet another marketing channel, packed tight with cruft.<p>Good? Bad? I don't know that I can or would make such a judgment. All I know is that Quora has become a slightly less obnoxious Yahoo! Answers.
One of the things that goes unmentioned and I think that this is an important thing, even for facebooks valuation that we have all been talking about:<p>With the right feedback loops companies can ramp up quickly like never before is true. But those same loops are in place for the site to down down very quickly too.<p>In the valuation for such companies analysts often use a multiple times revenue (or users etc). This multiple is based on the old school model that it took time for companies to die, for competitors to emerge etc. Doubt that is true anymore. One bad move that pisses off the community and people will leave in droves too. Digg anyone?
I visited Quora a while back. It had a login page, nothing that really described what it was, no examples. I figured it was a walled garden that invited participants. From the front page, you still can't tell what it is or why it is worth taking the time to sign up. Maybe it is a decent service, but, they lost me on the landing page.<p>Path.com, maybe I'm stupid, is it a dating site?<p>Instagram was interesting and I was able to figure out what that site was almost immediately. Since I was around when the SX-70 Land came out, their design and presentation actually was interesting. Too bad I use Android.<p>A landing page should tell me precisely what you offer, in quick and simple terms so that I can see how that site is going to benefit me. I'm not going to sign up - no matter how easy it is - to investigate whether this site has anything of interest.<p>I'm still unsure what path.com is other than a hyper-local facebook newsstream.<p>Maybe Quora and Path are still in stealth mode and doing the google invitation rollout, but, Instagram does look interesting.
I have never logged into Quora. Yet I find the fact that a few of the people answering the questions are authoritative sources fascinating. So stuff like being deluged by a stream of activity from people you follow on Quora is irrelevant for me. In a way, I think Quora stands out because its community of users acts as a sort of imperfect funnel for quality. Interesting questions and answers may become popular. With Twitter, it's hard to see what is relevant. But with Quora, if someone passes along a Quora link you almost know it is going to be good. Especially in the narrow niche of technology and Silicon Valley. Twitter is too democratic; Quora is more republican.<p>Also, clever name.