You may have seen Quora discussed in a few places.

• Someone’s Top 10 lists for increasing your online visibility
• A tweet touting a great Quora question – or answer
• Articles raving about the new start-up (launched in June 2010)

Some early reviews may have you thinking twice before jumping on the Quora bandwagon.

What is Quora?

Quora is the brainchild of two former Facebook employees.  It’s a question and answer site with an attitude.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing.

• The Quora community votes answers up or down
• It’s a subjective vote activated by clicking on the arrows to the left of the answer (as shown below – don’t worry, the arrows below are not activated so you can’t reject this post – at least not that way)

The reason I bring this up is so you don’t make the same mistake I did and click on an arrow thinking it’s a navigation tool.

The person I down-graded, you have my deepest apology!

Some things to note –

• Because an answer is voted to the top does not mean it’s accurate
• Users may or may not be experts in the fields they claim
• However, Quora does attract some high-pedigreed folks (present company excluded)
• You can answer questions anonymously
• Users can edit other users’ questions

By the way, I later learned you can reverse your “thumbs-up” or “thumbs-down” vote by clicking it again – or so one answer said. Who knows if it’s accurate.

Quora describes itself this way.

Quora is a continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it.”

One of the first thing I read when exploring Quora was a What not to do recital by presumably a long-time member.

While I am sure many would be offended by the tone, I appreciated the candor. But, for the life of me, I cannot find the posting.

I should have paid attention to her Don’t just leap right in before you know what you’re doing. 

Setting Up Quora

There are several options for setting up your account. Here are just a few.

• Profile – has options for a short bio, your location, a list of companies you worked for and schools you attended
• Topics – sign up for those that interest you or those recommended by others
• Social media – you can link your Twitter and Facebook accounts to Quora, which allows the sharing of questions and answers
• People – you can follow people and they can follow you  – you can also block people

When there are updates to the topics you selected or by the people you follow, they are delivered to your feed.

Thinking Twice

To be fair, I have not spent enough time on Quora to do it justice. So, take this with a grain of salt.

Time is my biggest problem with Quora – you better plan on devoting a lot of it to get up to speed.

• The site is not simple to use or intuitive
• New users are directed to a Frequently Asked Questions for New Users with 20 categories and nearly 70 links to questions and answers
• The site is all text and many answers are long and detailed – this is not your quick search option
• There is a definite culture that I have not completely explored that may or may not be your cup of tea

There are positive features about Quora.

• It’s great for research if you can narrow down your topic and validate the source
• It’s ripe with blog post ideas
• It could be a great source for finding experts

In the meantime, I think I will limit my Quora activities to good, old-fashioned lurking and leave the answers to the experts.

I’m not sure my ego would stand up to the abuse.

What do you think? Are you a Quora member?

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This is the third topic of seven from my What I Want to Learn list. It’s another round of practice what you preach. I have to stop preaching! I hope you enjoyed the post. I would love your feedback.

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