Why I was wrong about Quora as a blogging service …

I must apologize to Dave Winer. He warned me about supporting services that aren’t the open web and I wasn’t willing to listen to him a month ago, because I was infatuated with a cool new service that lots of insiders were supporting.

I’ve seen a LOT of discussion about Quora in the past few weeks since I wrote it could be the biggest blogging innovation in the past decade. GigaOm even wrote a post asking whether it was worth the more than $80 million the investors are hoping it’s worth.

Turns out I was totally wrong. It’s a horrid service for blogging, where you want to put some personality into answers. It’s just fine for a QA site, but we already have lots of those and, in fact, the competitors in this space are starting to react. Mahalo just released a new version that has been getting lots of praise and at DLD I met the CEO of Answers.com and he said to expect a major update from his service (which has 1000x more users). Stack Exchange is growing faster than Quora and has many many times more questions and answers, plus I’ve found the answers are broader in reach, and deeper in quality (especially for programmers).

Even worse, I’m getting dozens of emails from people pissed that their questions have been changed, their answers marked “not helpful,” or that they got kicked off the service altogether. Admittedly one of the things I really love about the service is there is very little, if any, spam and everyone is forced to use their real name, but lots of people want to talk about their business or not use their real names. Mashable, for instance, has the most followers on the service but they’ve been banned because brands aren’t allowed on Quora. Funny that some people with obviously fake names haven’t been deleted yet, though.

These are all things that are allowed on blogs, even welcomed, and no one can downvote my blogs here.

Why?

Because if you gather a group that doesn’t like you, or your writings, for some reason, you can get voted down, which effectively makes your answer disappear. See this post, for instance. As of right now my answer is voted down, even though it got 33 upvotes and lots of “great post” comments on Twitter and under the post itself. In fact, no one explained why the post got downvoted in the comments — which means that people who leave answers are left scratching their heads wondering “what did I do wrong?” Most just leave the system, not to return.

So, does this matter to the long term relevance of the system? Yes.

I’m watching hundreds of topics and not seeing the influx of new users and new questions that this service needs to become worth $100 million so that investors will make out.

It is a fun place to see answers by Steve Case and other technology insiders, but it just isn’t an interesting place to participate and until Quora fixes this moderation problem, and puts very clear answers onto why something was downvoted, it just isn’t the kind of place that I can recommend supporting.

Sorry, Dave, you were right and I was wrong.

UPDATE: How would I fix this? Turns out the question could have been collapsed by a reviewer (who isn’t paid by Quora, but given “special powers”). To fix this problem the reviewer’s name should be included on the collapsed answer, along with the reason why it was collapsed. There also should be a way to contest/appeal the downvote. Either way, whenever a question gets collapsed it should be very clear why, who did it, and what process the answerer can go through to change the answer to respond to the criticism, and get it upvoted again.

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The mistakes I made in Quora

So, I woke up early in Davos, Switzerland, excited to go skiing, and look at Techmeme and see that the Quora Review has published a post which could be titled “Scoble stay off the Quora lawn.”

Ouch.

Then I look at email. In my email I’ve been sent evidence by some of the 53 reviewers that a small group of reviewers has been marking posts of mine as “not helpful” in retribution to some things they don’t like about my behavior there.

Ouch 2.

Then I see Mike Arrington has posted that Quora is not about my hopes and dreams.

Ouch 3.

I should have just gone skiing without looking at my computer, but now I thought I’d recount some of the mistakes that pissed off these people.

Why?

So you can avoid making the same mistakes and getting the ire (and collapsing button) of them aimed at you.

1. At first I tweeted just my answers to questions. This ensured that my answers would be seen by a pretty sizeable group of people and would gain at least some upvotes, which would ensure that my answers would appear at the top of comment threads. Later, after getting this pointed out to me as a negative bias, I would link to other people’s questions, without my answers, and also to the entire question, so you’d see all answers. On Quora you do this by using the Twitter link on the right side of the page, not the one on the bottom.

2. I broke convention by using photographs in many of my answers. More than anything this seems to have gathered the ire of the reviewers and others. I did it partly because I know that posts with photos and images get more audience and more consideration than posts without, but partly for fun, and partly to, well, get more upvotes. But Quora is already being seen as a place that’s free of photos and videos so this gathered a great deal of hate.

3. I participated too much. In a little more than a month I wrote 400 answers. These made it seem like I was attempting to dominate the service. In reality I was just addicted and liked participating, but when most of the other people answered only a few thoughtful times (Mike Arrington, for instance, has only answered 15 questions) it was behavior out of place and got people to wonder about my participation there and the reasons behind it.

4. Some of my answers were controversial and caused flamewars. Quora is a place that’s free of flamewars and controversy. Why? Because when it happens reviewers pull those answers out of the stream and mark them as “not helpful.” I’ve seen this happen many times, not just to my own posts, but where I’ve answered in a way that got a flamewar going I’ve seen my answers pulled out too.

5. I answered questions too quickly, Part I. Why did I do this? Because, well, I was living on the service. At one point a week ago I was the number one user according to OneTrueFan and most other users, even reviewers, didn’t have the commitment to stay online all times of day and night just to answer the question first. First answers tend to get more visibility and upvotes. Why? Well, let’s say an answer gets five upvotes in first two minutes, because it shows up on the home feed, then it is very hard for a following answer to get the six upvotes it needs to beat the first answer (especially since the first answer keeps getting upvotes after that).

6. I answered posts too quickly, Part II. By answering posts too quickly, and because I knew that first answers were treated better than following answers, especially if the quality of the answer is the same, I would answer first with a poor quality answer and then come back and improve the answer over time. Again, this behavior pissed off people who couldn’t type as fast, or live on the system. Not to mention they saw the first, poor quality answer, and made up their minds that I was a poor quality answerer.

7. I was narcissistic and self promotional. It just leaks out of me. Why? Because I have 4,600 photos I’ve done on Flickr, 694 videos I’ve posted on YouTube, and the hundreds I’ve done on Building43, etc etc. and I pull upon that body of work to answer questions. Yes, many of these things augmented answers, but they pissed off people who don’t have a large body of photos, videos, and blog posts to call upon.

8. I didn’t understand soon enough how my participation in the system, which was mostly due to my own addiction and excitement, pissed people off. IE, I didn’t have my ear to the ground quick enough.

9. I really did think it was potentially a blogging service, not just a QA one. It looked different to me, and based on the answers I was reading (and the feed it generated for each user, here’s mine) that it was closer to a blogging service than to Wikipedia. I was wrong, but funny enough, no one at the company refuted my posts about it.

So, what can we do now? Well, I’m not addicted to the system anymore (partly because I was at Davos and DLD conferences for past two weeks — Louis Gray even noticed I’m not the top user anymore, but also partly because I have learned that if I want to participate I’ve gotta change the way I participate here, which means learning from these eight things myself).

That said, Quora had a huge impact on me the past month. It got me through writers’ block, and I learned some techniques to get me to post more here on my blog. For that I’m very grateful and you’ll see a different kind of blogging here thanks to it.

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Can you help with my Quora addiction? (My favorite questions)

So far on Quora I’ve answered 332 questions, mostly in the past month or so.

Now, some people are wondering why I’m spending so much time there and not on my blog. I’m having a tough time answering that, other than it’s easier to write when someone asks a question and it’s just hanging out there to answer. Plus, there’s the interplay of other people’s answers, the voting, the commenting, etc that I just wouldn’t get here.

It HAS become my main blogging place.

Lots of you are signing up as well, I’ve gotten more than 14,000 followers, most in the past three weeks.

Of course I don’t need to worry about monetizing my blog. If I did worry about that, then I guess I would feel more impelled to spend time here, rather than there.

Keep in mind my first reaction to Quora was to ignore it and try to keep using other tools, like Twitter or Google Buzz. That was back in July, how times change!

The cartoon above? Just seemed to fit this blog post. It was done by Hugh Macleod for Rackspace in a post titled “not everybody’s cut out for ‘normal.’”

Here’s some of my favorite questions that I’ve given answers to:

Is having a blog useful in 2011? Why?

Is Robert Scoble an investor in Quora (And does he get compensated by Quora)?

What platform should I choose to develop? (Android/iOS)

Why does Apple gets more media coverage than any other companies?

What are the coolest things from the 2011 CES?

If RSS is dead, what’s next?

Will Google figure out social?

What events in 2011 have the most potential to be the introduction ground for transformative and disruptive technologies?

Got any advice for startups launching at SXSW 2011?

What do users want on a location based app?

What apps should every journalist have on their iPhone?

Should I move my Rails app from Heroku to Rackspace? If so, why?

How will Xbox Kinect evolve gesture based interfaces?

What are the must-have iPad apps? Why?

What are the must-have iPhone apps? Why?

How would you make Path better than Instagram?

What do you like about Cinch?

Why does Twitter enjoy such success in comparison to FriendFeed, Plurk, Buzz or any of the others?

Why haven’t list features on Facebook and/or Twitter caught on?

Does it frustrate employees at Google / Yahoo / Microsoft / Facebook that they can’t genuinely speak up on the Internet and are compelled to do so anonymously (self-censorship), in most cases?

How do TechCrunch, Mashable, RWW and other influential tech blogs get their news/sources? And how much do they reward/pay their sources, if any?

What are the best sources for original tech news?

How do companies apply social media to customer service?

How do I get blogs to post about my startup?

What are some tips for getting your startup featured on TechCrunch, Mashable, and other tech blogs?

Is the “Scoble Effect” on startups real or imaginary?

What is the key to achieve success as a startup outside the Valley?

Who are the most influential people in the Valley?

Which Quora users have the most followers?

Why is Quora better than Facebook Questions or Linkedin Answers?

Will Quora suffer from the chat room/forum problem?

For an amateur concert photographer, which DSLR is recommended?

If I’m not happy with life, should I commit suicide?

Besides developing Building43 and hunting down new exciting web-startups, what do you actually do at Rackspace?

How does a busy man like you find so much time to answer so many questions and be so approachable? Does your day have 72 hours?

What are some good strategies for dealing with information overload?

What is the most magical software?

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Is Quora the biggest blogging innovation in 10 years?

I’ve now been blogging for 10 years. Looking back we haven’t seen all that much innovation for bloggers. You have a box. You type in it. Put an image into it. And hit publish. That’s much the same as the tools I had 10 years ago.

But now comes Quora.

I’m really loving it. I have a hard time explaining why. I’m not the only one, either.

VC Shervin Pishevar says “I believe @Quora is the future of blogging.”

Wow.

So what’s going on there?

First, look at the Quora items I’ve been participating in. This is a lot like a blog. But it’s not Dave Winer’s blog style. It’s any question I’ve followed, written in, voted up, etc.

So, what is the innovation here?

First, it learned from Twitter. Ask your users a question and they’ll answer it.

Second, they learned from Facebook. Build a news feed that brings new items to you.

Third, they learned from the best social networks. You follow people you like. But then they twisted it. You can follow topics. Or you can follow questions in addition to following people. This is great for new users who might not know anyone. They can follow topics.

Fourth, they learned from blogs about how to do great SEO. I’ve started seeing Quora show up on Google.

Fifth, they learned from FriendFeed, Digg, and other systems that let you vote up things. If you watch a question that has a lot of engagement you’ll even see votes roll in live. It’s very addictive.

Sixth, they brought the live “engagement display” that Google Wave had: it shows who is answering a question WHILE they are answering it.

Seventh, it has a great search engine for you to find things you are interested in.

Anyway, I find that there’s something addictive about participating over there instead of here on my blog. Why? Because when you see people voting up your answers or adding their own replies in real time it makes you realize there’s a good group of people reading your stuff. I don’t get that immediate rush here (here I have to wait for comments to show up, which isn’t nearly as immediate).

I notice that the same thing has me very excited about Instagram, too. When I look at other people’s photos I can see lots of people liking them and commenting on them in real time.

Will Quora kill blogging? No. Blogging has a business model for publishers that Quora does not provide yet (I don’t care about the business model so I’m free to go where the innovations are happening).

Thanks Quora for providing a great community and way for people to communicate about what’s interesting in their lives in a new way. That’s innovation in blogging.

By the way, even pro bloggers are using Quora. Today Techcrunch used Quora to find and report on Flickr in a new way (that isn’t the first time they’ve done that, either).

UPDATE: Mark Suster, VC, explains why he thinks Quora is significant.

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Free consulting for Path, interviewing the CEO of Instagr.am, and my love of Quora

I’ve really been getting into Quora, a new Q&A service that was started by a former CTO of Facebook. I’m not sure why this one took for me, where there have been many others, but I think it’s just the smart community that’s sprung up on this service. I almost didn’t blog about it, because so far there’s been some of the best discussions of technology and startup help I’ve seen anywhere and I didn’t want to see that watered down, but when something is good I just have to share it, so here we are.

It’s interesting, but there’s something that makes it easier to write there than here. Weird, huh? But here I have an idea that there’s an audience that’s known me for a while. Over there everything seems fresh and new. Plus, here, I have to come up with my own questions and ideas. Over there I can just respond to other people’s questions and ideas.

Which leads me to last night. I have been playing a lot with photo sharing services and have been spending a lot of time thinking about why I don’t like photo-sharing on the iPhone app Path as much as I like Instagram and what I would do about Path to make it better than Instagram. So far 18 people have voted it up, which tells me there’s something there that resonates with the audience hanging out on Quora, so thought I’d point it out here.

But there’s something else going on with Quora. It builds a page of everything you do on the site which is a new form of blogging. For many people who aren’t used to regularly posting and trying to build an audience this is an awesome way to share ideas and get used to trying to find things that’ll get other people to respond. I imagine we’ll see a new group of journalists spring from Quora. For instance, you can follow me and see everything I’ve written so far on Quora. Funny enough I’ve been doing a lot more words there than here. It’s like a place where I can try something out on a smaller audience, then move it to the blog when it’s baked. I wonder what Dave Winer or Mike Arrington would think of this, probably think I’m nuts.

Speaking of Path and Instragr.am, the other day I met Kevin Systrom, CEO of Instagr.am. They announced over on Quora that they just passed 300,000 users after only being out a month, which is quite good for an iPhone-only application. We had a nice chat, in audio, on my iPhone, of course, about Instagr.am. and where he sees the service evolving.

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