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What does Quora have that Google, Wikipedia, forums, and other sources of information on the Internet do not have?
Aside from the occasional industry expert or celebrity like Ashton Kutcher? (The average know-it-all seems to be the most prevalent contributor.)
Does Quora really supply a need, or is it just adding a middle man between question and answer?
Does Quora really supply a need, or is it just adding a middle man between question and answer?
technologyunderstand
Question Pages
Google is where you search for information to find yourself.Quora is where you reverse the search, so that the information comes to you.
Google is where you can find primary and secondary sources.
Quora is where you find tertiary sources.
Wikipedia is where information has to be neutral and referenced.
Quora is where information can be biased and unsourced.
Wikipedia is where you'll have your changes reverted, if your information isn't objective.
Quora is where you can receive upvotes for anecdotal answers, with no peer review.
Quora is less authoritative than Wikipedia when it comes to finding credible information about topics, but
the amount of personal opinion you can gather whilst sampling a [fair/unfair] representation of a population, gives it a competitive advantage.
What is the purpose of Quora?
Quora used to be a place that was meant to be an ever improving collection of questions and answers. That slogan soon changed.Now it's a place to put you in touch with everything you need to know about. This removed the Flag feature, and made Quora more of an echo chamber to reinforce your beliefs, than to challenge your own beliefs,.
Quora is a content farm, designed to replace Wikipedia, so that every question you can ever think of, has Quora in first in Google once you search for it. This is why dumb questions which their answers you can find in Google in 5 minutes, and Survey Question are now allowed.
The founders of Quora have no definite plan of which way Quora will go, so it's up to you, the community, to decide which turn Quora makes its way, next. You create the boards and types of questions that you want, so that you make Quora what it is. Wikipedia was meant to replace the Encyclopaedia. Quora...... you decide!
Boards
Boards are where people Quora is used as a blog promotion network so that people can gain an audience for their words.Boards also collate pieces of information from Quora into one place, about a specific theme.
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Quora, like Facebook, adapts its feature set, to how its users are using the product. Also that Quora is front-facing, whereas Wikipedia is faceless.