Quora goes (more) viral

I imagine as Quora gains more publicity and wider usage then the quality of questions and answers will go down. I hope not though.

It's more like Facebook. Minus all of the content about your single friends drinking and all of your married friends talking about how their newborn baby just pooped/peed/barfed on them. Add people asking smart questions with domain experts answering (I've seen Ev Williams and Dennis Crowley answer the same question.). http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-process-involved-in-launchi...

It has real identities like Facebook. The information density and structure of Wikipedia where each page updates in real-time. The follow model of Twitter where you can follow smart people and topics.

In a nutshell yes. But it's so much better and realtime. You just have to get involved in it to see why it can be quite addicting.

Here's a simple hash:

LinkedIn => Recruiters Facebook => People you don't want to be friends with; Twitter => People you wish were your friends; Quora => Basically Hacker News comments' like quality + twitter like asymmetrical following + domain experts whom you can contact directly! Also, there your upvotes are visible too :-)

Here's a thread on Quora similar to your question - http://www.quora.com/Is-Quora-a-glorified-forum?q=is+quora+a...

I'd describe it as a social network for questions.

In contrast to Facebook, where the vast majority of information is mind-numbingly dull (maybe that's just my friends) it connects people based on interests and requests for expertise.

So far, it works.

Quora is very different from StackExchange sites. There are no badges or karma. Users aren't ranked. The site revolves around following people, questions and topics that interest you and your homepage reflects those. The design is much cleaner and pages update in real time. You also pull in your social connections and can follow your friends.

One difference is this: StackExchange sites tend to focus on questions that have one objective, correct answer. StackOverflow, ServerFault, the math site, etc., all put the emphasis on having a single canonical resource for people asking questions about whatever topic. (There are exceptions to this, like programming.stackexchange.com, which is basically the "subjective questions" version of StackOverflow.)