Quora

Does this ever happen to you?  Get a notification that someone has started following your updates on a social network or site that you forgot you were on?  This just recently happened to me with Quora and I was reminded why I signed up in the first place.

Quora is a collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it. The goal is to have each section become the best possible resource for someone who wants to know about the question. The creators’ vision is to have Quora become a database of knowledge that will grow and grow until almost everything that anyone wants to know is available on the site.  Any information shared on Quora stays there forever for anyone in the future who is interested in a similar topic or who may have the same question.

What’s also good about Quora is that the same questions do not get posted over and over again.  There is only one version of each question, which helps all the information and material be gathered in one place.

As of now, I’ve signed up to follow two topics – social media and public relations.  However, as you can see from my profile page below, Quora helpfully suggests other topics they think you’ll like and lets you search for specific interests.

More information about Quora can be found here, but they do note that “almost any public space on Quora can be edited by anyone who knows how to improve it. This includes the text of questions and the details around them, what topics are attached to which questions, and the summaries of answers. Quora relies on the good faith of everyone using it to make it a high quality resource.”

What I especially found interesting was this idea of “inverse blogging,” which is when you follow topics, as I have with social media and PR, so the system shows you questions about what you’re interested in and know about. This is a way to create an audience of experts for anyone who wants to answer a question. It’s a way to monitor areas where you can show your expertise.

So maybe now that I’ve been reminded I’m signed up for this, I’ll start exploring a bit more as it seems like a pretty useful database!  …I wonder what other networks or sites I’ve signed up for in the past that I’ve forgotten about.  If you see me inactive on one, let me know!

This post was first published by MEREDITH L. EATON on March Communications’ blog, PR Nonsense, and may be viewed here.

last modified April 20, 2010