A social network of questions and answers
Quora is a user-created, edited and organized source of questions and answers. Its aim is to become the best place to find answers to a particular answer.
Quora's aims are lofty, and as the service is still relatively new there is obviously a long way to go. But many questions have been asked and answered already, so we can judge how well the service is doing so far.
Currently the service is invite only, but if you are invited the sign up process is incredibly easy. Sign in with your Twitter account or Facebook connect and you'll immediately be connected with contacts already on Quora. Despite the existence of introductory questions, Quora isn't easy to get the hang of yet.
The interface needs to be a little clearer. However, after some playing around you'll find out how to follow some topics, and read some questions and answers, or even ask some of your own. The app is based around the idea that you configure Quora to give you information you are interested in. The app has detailed notification settings - which controls how many emails you will get. It is worth exploring these, or you may find yourself flooded with notifications in your inbox!
The quality of questions and answers is mixed, but generally higher than that of Yahoo! Answers.The atmosphere in the Quora community is quite dry - this is not as irreverent and funny a place as Twitter. As well as answering questions, you can suggest edits to others, or flag them as not helpful.
The accuracy and quality of the information is reliant on the community, and it will be interesting to see whether Quora suffers some of the same teething problems seen in Wikipedia.
Quora is an interesting web app that promises to be a great source of information.
