But over the past few weeks, numerous mentions in big name social media news sites have pushed Quora into the spotlight. This newfound fame has led to everything from a huge spike in new users to sites parodying its shortcomings. But either way, many pundits are wondering if Quora might be the "next big thing" in the social media universe.
And as a active user, I offer my own view on that very question: I sure hope not.
There are three main reasons why Quora shouldn't be happy about its explosive growth.
- Logistics: Quora simply doesn't have the infrastructure to support the amount of new users they are getting, which has led to several crashes and spam attempts already. Obviously, those are all fixable problems, but Quora needs to patch things up quickly.
- Steep learning curve: Many of the answers found on the site are a lot longer than 140 characters, and I even remember spending about 15 minutes working on an answer once. The problem is that the average user doesn't realize how active you have to be to get any use out of the site and quickly abandons it.
- Alienating existing users: This is the biggest problem Quora will face in the coming weeks. Much of the site's charm revolved around the thought-out posts and internal code of conduct that the users shared. The flood of new users have troubled many of the existing users, creating a bit of an internal backlash. However, Quora co-founder Charlie Cheever wrote a post expressing his commitment to maintaining quality. Whether or not it will be effective has yet to be seen, but it is definitely a necessary step.
The bottom line is that I don't believe Quora is made for a Facebook or Twitter-like user base. It's not made to be the "next big thing" and I for one am just fine with that.