Is this question on Quora.com yet?

Have you tried Quora.com yet?  It’s essentially an open question & answer board, divided out by topics.  The usual social media rules apply: you can follow threads, follow people, like answers, vote answers up and down, upload your profile, etc.  It’s also growing very quickly, going from zero to thousands of users and tens of thousands of questions in just under a year.  For me, the fascinating part is the meta-sociology that is still developing.  Quora is the proto-wikipedia, where information is still raw, subjective, and disjointed.

Early on, the site was populated by the early adopters, who by their very nature were authorities in the areas on the site and probably more attuned to the social media scene.  They were insiders.  Questions tended to be straightforward inquiries as to why an Internet business was doing something or pricing was structured or how many servers are available, and the answer usually came from a VP at that business.

Now, however, the site is full of honest inquiries that are really requests for recommendations, as well as completely subjective chit-chat questions where a “real answer” would be impossible.  For example, just from today we see “Which is the Best song by The Cure?” and “Why should I see Tron?”  These questions have no answers, they’re the aimless chit-chat (and they don’t even qualify for hipster-idiotication status like “which is more environmentally friendly, disposable razors or electric razors?“).  None of these issues would be allowed over at Wikipedia.  And they would start a fight on any single-threaded blog or news discussion site like HuffPo or BoingBoing or Fark.  How long will that last?  Is it only a matter of time (and popularity) before Quora gets swamped with subjectiveness and drivel?  Or are there structural elements in place that will contain the slosh-over?

Here’s what I see that’s good so far:

1. Quora is severely limited down to a question with several answers that get voted up or down.  This may keep the crap and joke answers under control, but voting only works to a certain point.
2. Users can follow specific topics in their feed, so supposedly it may be self-editing where I don’t need to see questions about celebrity diets or snotty book reviews.
3. Quora prompts you to invite your friends from Facebook and twitter– which is more than likely your real set of peers and friends, so you’re less likely to act like a goof with your answers.

Here’s what I see that’s not so good so far:

1. Quora is severely limited down to a question with several answers.  There’s no real easy way to build up knowledge incrementally by adding into an existing text (like there was with Wikipedia before the reference zealots took over).  Yes, one can edit a previous answer, but the site is geared toward people merely tacking on another answer.  In the end, it answers the question, but it doesn’t build up a knowledge-base (yet).
2. Users can follow specific topics in their feed, but this limits down the user’s exposure to topics where he/she is likely already an expert.  This may increase the quality overall, but it also may encourage showing-off in front of your peers.
3. Quora prompts you to invite your friends from Facebook and twitter– which is more than likely your real set of peers and friends, so you’re much more likely to act like a goof with your answers.

I’ve answered questions.  I haven’t asked any yet.  I’ve seen astroturfing (companies asking straw-man questions), I’ve seen shameless self-promotion (people asking themselves questions), and I’ve seen some solid answers.  We’ll see how this one plays out.

a) Blowing their own horn on twitter — not worth watching

b) Showing insights on the social interaction of the great online hive that has now come into being — these are what I’ll call  “Network Biologists”, and are worth your time.

The network biologist will spend his/her time researching the strange interactions between people, and the even stranger medium that is created as a result.  They are not sociologists, because it is more than the interactions of the humans; there are robots, scripts, and crude AI influencing the mix.  The environment itself is ever changing– and the actors change as a result– but the center of focus has shifted to the behaviour of the fish, not the mechanical workings of the reef: hence the term ‘biologist’.

The usability managers in ecommerce companies were an early manifestation.  Now, everyone in the online marketing department, merchandising, and even finance is trying to ascertain how the huge mass of people will react to the online environment.  This is different from standard “retail science” or “catalog management” because of the constant arms race in online functionality as well as the multiple-variable equation where customers will influence each other in real time, as well as try to get in on the deal with some sort of affiliate, coupon, or recommendation in exchange for a slice of the profits.

The best results so far have been to segment and clasify online users into their various behavioural patterns.  Oddly enough, people don’t mind surrendering them willingly.  The current spate of “what [blank] are you?” viruses circulating on facebook are a segmentation maker’s dream: people are happy to tell us exactly what drives their brightest fears and darkest hopes. The most successful websites out there have tapped into the hive behaviour that humans portray when given just the right mix of anonymity and self-aggrandizement: Google’s page rankings are a canopy of dominant players and ground-dwellers in their shadow; Amazon’s entire merchandising catalog for millions of products is an expansion of fecundity like salmon spawning; Facebook is basic tribalism that proves Dunbar’s number, De.licio.us is our own pollen-finding wiggle dance; twitter is a sea of iridescent jellyfish desperate for attention; there is a flavour of pr0n out there for every strange perversion you could imagine (and a few you don’t want to).

I would imagine that colleges will soon have some sort of degree in Network Biology: it will be a combination of sociology, crowd biology, and basic network mechanics, to show how it is all wired together.