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Although I agree that Stack[Overflow|Exchange] will never been a mainstream site, I think there's an important difference in that SO is very useful to the community that it does support.

They've really nailed the technical question 'problem' to the point that my day-to-day job would be measurably harder without it, and so as the poster says I can easily imagine paying for added-value features there.

Quora, not so much. Although I really doubt the solution is to add more eye-candy to the page design. Sheesh, web designers. ;-)

From the article:

"The site is visually bland: there’s barely any color or images, and you won’t find any effect fancier than rounded corners."

Somebody please save us from the attack of web design. If I see another gradient rounded flashing Javascript-enabled button for gradient rounded flashing Javascript-enabled buttons' sake, I'm gonna hurl, Wayne's World style.

Flashing buttons? Sounds like you're frequenting some dark alleys. Make sure your anti-virus is up-to-date.

agreed. look at craigslist - about as unsexy a design as you could imagine, but it solves real problems for people, and they use it constantly. quora - not so much, and fancier buttons and UI won't really change that.

His point wasn't about making it more fancy but rather, less sterile. Even Craigslist has more character.

Well, to be fair there was a certain kind of logic behind my "shiny buttons will save Quora" argument:

1) Pivot 2) Redesign 3) Existing members come for the redesign and stay for the new Quora, thus giving the new strategy a chance.

Although you could say that when all you have is Photoshop, every site looks like it needs to be redesigned… ;)

I think Stack Exchange has a much better chance of going mainstream, but by going through the side entrance, not through the front door. Some of the SE sites will fail (a handful already have), but others will be successful in their niche. By keeping the focus small in each community, they're making much more useful sites. I think a lot of people will end up using SE sites without really knowing or caring that they're at an SE site.

Disclosure: As a Stack Overflow moderator, I'm quite biased.

No one outside the Valley [uses Quora]

I'll validate that: I've barely heard of it. I've never visited, and it never seems to turn up in Google or DDG searches.

It doesn't show up in searches because for a long time the whole site was noindexed. Think they changed this, but considering the whole site is designed much like an SEO spamfest (tags, ridiculous hierarchy), it didn't make a whole lot of sense.

I'm also a long-term Quora skeptic -- and have been documenting the reasons why in the comments at http://bit.ly/imitates#comments for the last six months. Agreed about the likely outcome; hard to know about the valuation.

And agreed with the other commenters that StackExchange/StackOverflow is in a very different situation. It's hard to know whether or not they'll get to "mainstream"; but they don't necessarily have to in order to be a very successful company. And they've got a huge advantage of several topics where they are one of the best resources on the web -- and an much larger active community than Quora.

Unobfuscated non-Libyan link: http://www.talesfromthe.net/jon/?p=2332#comments

"Ultimately I see the end for both companies being a Google or Facebook buyout in the $X00,000,000 range, which I think says more about the overall market than it does their inherent value."

Can you explain how a site like Quora would be worth at least $100,000,000 to Google, Facebook, or anyone else?

Aardvark's acquisition by Google for $50M about 18 months, back when the market wasn't as bubblicious as it is now, is one comparable. http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2010/02/12/aardvark-google/ looks at why that valuation arguably made sense. Aardvark had $6M invested, Quora's got $11M.

Like I said in my other comment, not sure what valuation makes sense, so I'm not convinced it'll be in the X00,000,000 range... but it's not impossible.

"Everyone in the Valley thinks its huge because everyone in the Valley uses it."

My techie friends from Silicon Valley also don't use Quora. So don't worry, not everyone in Valley uses it. I think very few % of Valley users are using it.

math.stackexchange.com and mathoverflow.net are working well, from what I can see, so the model works in at least one area outside of programming.

Mathoverflow has become a place where serious mathematicians go to discuss research level mathematics, and some of the world's top mathematicians ask and answer questions there (including at least a couple Field's medalists).

FYI, I'm very engaged with Quora, and I live in Chile http://www.quora.com/Carlos-Leiva-Burotto and through Quora I made networking with a guy who works on Mauritian Island.. that's in the front of Madagascar!!!! Not even through Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Flickr, etc I engaged with someone from that place!!

So Quora is definitely a worldwide tool and the active members are not only people from SV.

You should definitely open your mind to not see only the things that you want to see.

Isn't stack overflow in the top 100 sites in terms of traffic? While it might not be mainstream, it's already huge.

You are basing that on Alexa? Alexa will always over-report sites like Stackoverflow, because lots of SEO people (who use the Alexa toolbar) use it.

Google trends gives a better view. Here is is related to other sites that (according to Alexa) have similar traffic: http://trends.google.com/websites?q=stackoverflow.com%2C+dou...

Regarding Stack Exchange, I understand (and agree) with your view that there are lots of verticals it won't work in. But do you think programming is the only vertical in which it can work?

My view is, the model will work well for some places, badly for others, and that's perfectly fine - for the places it works well, it works really well. For the others, other solutions will be thought up.

How does a 9-figure exit prediction make you a Quora detractor?

StackOverflow, because of its subject matter will never be mainstream, but I it's immensely popular among those in the programming community, and that's a pretty huge market.

I don't think StackOverflow is really trying to be a general, mainstream Q&A site, largely because there is no mainstream when it comes to Q&A sites. When you go to one of these sites, you don't want your question to be answered by a generalist, you want a specialist with domain knowledge to answer your question.

Looking at it that way, the StackExchange model makes sense. Make a number of very specialized communities that experts can congregate in. Make a points system that rewards experts for their time and effort. Finally, invest in making the site friendly to search engines, so that non-experts can find the experts and ask questions of them.

Right, Stack Overflow itself can never be mainstream by definition, but cletus is talking about the (slightly) larger Stack Exchange network of Q&A sites that SO is a part of.