Quora

For the legislature term, see Quorum.
Quora, Inc.
Type of business Private
Type of site
 Question & answer
Available in English, Spanish
Founded June 2009 (2009-06)
Headquarters Mountain View, California
Area served Worldwide
Founder(s) Adam D'Angelo
Charlie Cheever
Key people Adam D'Angelo (CEO)
Slogan(s) The best answer to any question.
Website www.quora.com
Alexa rank Increase 97 (November 2016)[1]
Registration Required
Launched June 21, 2010 (2010-06-21)
Current status Active
Written in Python, C++[2]

Quora is a question-and-answer site where questions are asked, answered, edited and organized by its community of users. Its publisher, Quora, Inc., is based in Mountain View, California. The company was founded in June 2009, and the website was made available to the public on June 21, 2010.[3] Users can collaborate by editing questions and suggesting edits to other users' answers.[4]

History

Quora was co-founded by two former Facebook employees, Adam D'Angelo and Charlie Cheever. D'Angelo resigned from his position at Facebook in January 2010 to create Quora.[5] He said that he and Cheever were inspired to create Quora because "we thought that Q & A is one of those areas on the internet where there are a lot of sites, but no one had come along and built something that was really good yet."[6] Quora's base of users grew quickly in December 2010.[7]

Quora had an estimated 500,000 registered users, as of January 2011.[8] In June 2011, Quora redesigned its website, in order to make information discovery and navigation easier.[9] Quora released an official iPhone app on September 29, 2011, followed by an Android app on September 5, 2012.

In September 2012, Quora announced that co-founder Charlie Cheever was stepping back from a day-to-day role at the firm, although he would continue in an advisory role.[10]

In January 2013, Quora launched a blogging platform.[11]

Quora launched full text search of questions and answers on its website on March 20, 2013,[12] and extended the feature to mobile devices in late May 2013.[13] It also announced in May 2013 that all its metrics had tripled relative to the same time in the prior year.[14] In November 2013, Quora introduced a feature called Stats to allow ll Quora users to see summary and detailed statistics regarding how many people had viewed, upvoted, followed, and shared their questions and answers.[15][16] TechCrunch reported that, although Quora had no immediate plans for monetization, they believed that search ads would likely be their eventual source of revenue.[17]

In April 2014, it was announced that Quora was raising $80 million from Tiger Global at a reported $900 million valuation.[18][19][20][21] Quora was also one of the members of the Summer 2014 Y Combinator batch.[22][23][24]

In March 2016, Quora acquired Parlio.[25] In April of that year, the company also began a limited rollout of advertising on the site.[26]

In October 2016, Quora launched Quora en español to the public.[27]

Operation

Quora requires users to register with their real names rather than an Internet pseudonym (screen name), and visitors unwilling to log in or use cookies have had to resort to workarounds to use the site.[28] Users may also log in with their Google or Facebook accounts using the OpenID protocol. They can upvote or downvote answers, and suggest edits to extant answers provided by other users. The Quora community includes some well-known people, such as Dustin Moskovitz, Jimmy Wales and Adrián Lamo.[8][29][30][31]

Quora has developed its own algorithm to rank answers, which works similarly to Google PageRank.[32] Quora uses Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud technology to host the servers that run its website.[33][34]

Financials

In March 2010, Quora received funding of $11 million from Benchmark Capital, valuing the start-up at $86 million.[35]

In May 2012, Quora raised $50 million in Series B funds, valuing the firm at over $400 million,[36][37] bringing their total funding to $61 million. Co-founder D'Angelo, who owns 0.8% of Facebook stock, also invested $20 million of his own money in the B round.[37]

In April 2014, Quora announced an $80 million Series C round of funding, valuing the firm at over $900 million. The funding was led by Tiger Global Management.[18][19][20][21]

Reception

Quora was reviewed extensively by the media in 2010.[38][39][40]

According to Robert Scoble, Quora succeeded in combining attributes of Twitter and Facebook.[41] Later, in 2011, Scoble criticized Quora for being a "horrid service for blogging", and although a decent question and answer website, not substantially better than competitors.[42]

In 2010, D'Angelo and Cheever were among five named "Smartest Engineer runner-up" in the "smartest people in the tech" article by CNNMoney.[43] They were also both listed in Inc. magazine's "Top 30 Under-30" entrepreneurs list of 2011.[44][45]

Privacy concerns

In August 2012, blogger Ivan Kirigin pointed out that it was possible for acquaintances and followers to see his activity including which questions he had looked at.[46] In response, Quora stopped showing question views in feeds later that month. By default, Quora exposes its users' profiles, including their real names, to search engines.[47]

Posterity

Quora has attracted controversy for using robots.txt to forbid the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine from crawling the site.[48] Their stated reason is that the Wayback APIs as of 2016 do not give users a way to censor answers that they may regret previously posting. Critics have raised concerns about the fate of Quora's data if the site ever goes offline, and recommended Stack Overflow as an easily archived alternative.[49]

Top Writers Program

In November 2012, Quora introduced the Top Writers Program as a way to recognize individuals who had made especially valuable content contributions to the site, and encourage them to continue. Top writers are invited to occasional events and receive gifts such as branded clothing items and books. The company believes that, by cultivating a group of core users who are particularly invested in the site, the program creates a feedback loop of user engagement.[50]

Timeline

Date Event type Details
June 2009ProductQuora founded
March 2010Funding Quora raises $11 million in a series A, with Benchmark Capital as an investor[51]
June 2010Product Quora announces that it will open up to the public[52]
January 2011Team Marc Bodnick leaves Elevation Partners to join Quora[53]
February 2011Technology Quora chooses C++ over C for its high performance services[54]
July 2011ProductQuora introduces video to its Q&A pages[55]
July 2011ProductQuora introduces Credits for asking-to-answer questions[56]
September 2011ProductQuora introduces threaded comments and comment voting[57]
May 2012Funding Quora raises $50 million in a series B, with Peter Thiel and Adam D'Angelo as investors[51]
September 2012TeamCo-founder Charlie Cheever leaves[58]
November 2012Product Quora introduces Top Writers program[59]
January 2013Product Quora introduces blogs[11]
March 2013Product Quora introduces a policy eliminating image-only answers.[60]
April 2014Funding Quora raises $80 million in a series C at $900 million valuation, with Tiger Global Management and Y Combinator as investors[51][61]
January 2016Product Quora announces bounty system, offering financial bounties for the best answer (selected by the user) on select questions.[62]
March 2016Product Quora acquires Parlio, an online Q&A site started by Wael Ghonim.[63]
April 2016Product Quora announces that it will start out testing advertisements, on a small number of question pages.[64]
May 2016Team Marc Bodnick, Quora's public face and leader of its business and moderation team, announces that he is leaving the company.
August 2016Product Quora announces the support for the Spanish language.[65]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Quora.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved September 7, 2016.
  2. ↑ "Why did Quora choose C++ over C for its high performance services? - Quora". Quora. Retrieved February 12, 2011.
  3. ↑ "Quora's Highly Praised Q&A Service Launches To The Public (And The Real Test Begins)". Techcrunch.com. June 21, 2010. Retrieved April 6, 2013.
  4. ↑ Wortham, Jenna (March 12, 2010). "Facebook Helps Social Start-Ups Gain Users". New York Times. Retrieved March 29, 2010.
  5. ↑ "Why I Quit My CTO Job At Facebook And Started Quora". Business Insider. Retrieved March 29, 2010.
  6. ↑ "The Mystery Behind Quora". Boston Innovation. Retrieved March 29, 2010.
  7. ↑ Lewenstein, ed. (November 28, 2010). "Quora Signups Explode". Retrieved January 24, 2011.
  8. 1 2 Arthur, Charles; Kiss, Jemima (January 5, 2011). "Quora: the hottest question-and-answer website you've probably never heard of". The Guardian. London. Retrieved May 31, 2012.
  9. ↑ Tsotsis, Alexia (June 24, 2011). "Inspired by Wikipedia, Quora aims for relevancy with topic groups and reorganized topic pages". techcrunch.com. Retrieved April 6, 2013.
  10. ↑ Cutler, Kim-Mai (September 11, 2012). "Quora Co-Founder Charlie Cheever Steps Back From Day-To-Day Role At The Company". TechCrunch.
  11. 1 2 Constine, Josh (January 23, 2013). "Quora Launches Blogging Platform With Mobile Text Editor To Give Every Author A Built-In Audience". TechCrunch. Retrieved February 1, 2013.
  12. ↑ Russell, Jon (March 21, 2013). "Quora finally introduces full-text search to boost content discovery". The Next Web. Retrieved November 14, 2013.
  13. ↑ Constine, Josh (May 29, 2013). "Quora Brings Full-Text Search To Mobile To Unlock FAQ&As For Any Keyword". TechCrunch. Retrieved November 14, 2013.
  14. ↑ Tsotsis, Alexia (May 28, 2013). "Quora Grew More Than 3X Across All Metrics In The Past Year". Retrieved November 14, 2013.
  15. ↑ Gannes, Liz (November 12, 2013). "Quora Gives Its Writers a Stats Dashboard". AllThingsD. Retrieved November 14, 2013.
  16. ↑ Truong, Alice (November 12, 2013). ""Quora Stats" Tells You If People Find Your Posts Useful". Fast Company. Retrieved November 14, 2013.
  17. ↑ Constine, Josh (November 13, 2013). "Quora Signals It's Favoring Search Ads For Eventual Monetization, Launches Author Stats Tool". TechCrunch. Retrieved November 14, 2013.
  18. 1 2 Constine, Josh (April 9, 2014). "Quora Wants To Stay Independent, Raises $80M Series C From Tiger Global At ~$900M Valuation". TechCrunch. Retrieved May 11, 2014.
  19. 1 2 Konrad, Alex (May 9, 2014). "Quora Raises $80 Million From Tiger Global To 'Stay Independent Forever'". Forbes. Retrieved May 11, 2014.
  20. 1 2 McBride, Sarah (April 9, 2014). "Tiger Global helps Q&A site Quora raise $80 million". Reuters. Retrieved May 11, 2014.
  21. 1 2 "Quora Raises $80M Led by Tiger Global, Now Valued at $900Ml". Re/code. April 9, 2014. Retrieved April 11, 2014.
  22. ↑ Constine, Josh (May 11, 2014). "Q: Why Did Quora Join Y Combinator? A: It Was Almost Free". TechCrunch. Retrieved May 11, 2014.
  23. ↑ Altman, Sam (May 9, 2014). "Quora in the next YC batch". Y Combinator. Retrieved May 12, 2014.
  24. ↑ Kokalitcheva, Kia (May 9, 2014). "Meet the oldest Y Combinator startup ever: Quora". VentureBeat. Retrieved May 12, 2014.
  25. ↑ "Quora's first acquisition is Arab Spring instigator's Q&A site Parlio". TechCrunch. March 30, 2016. Retrieved March 31, 2016.
  26. ↑ "Quora begins testing ads on 'small number' of question pages". VentureBeat. Retrieved August 7, 2016.
  27. ↑ "Quora en español launches out of beta". VentureBeat. Retrieved October 21, 2016.
  28. ↑ Mlot, Stephanie (February 15, 2013). "Quora adds options for sharing with unregistered users". PC Mag. Retrieved July 31, 2016.
  29. ↑ "Quora morphs from adolescence to hot property". linkedmediagroup.com. Retrieved April 6, 2013.
  30. ↑ Dishman, Lydia (January 4, 2011). "fastcompany.com". fastcompany.com. Retrieved April 6, 2013.
  31. ↑ Taber, Jane (October 19, 2011). "Quora offers clues as to why Justin Trudeau won't yet seek Liberal helm — The Globe and Mail". The Globe and Mail. Toronto.
  32. ↑ "Quora's New Algorithm for Ranking Answers". ReadWriteWeb. Retrieved March 29, 2010.
  33. ↑ "Quora Signups". ReadWriteWeb. Retrieved March 29, 2010.
  34. ↑ Lohr, Steve (April 22, 2011). "Amazon Malfunction Raises Doubts About Cloud Computing". The New York Times.
  35. ↑ "Benchmark Invests at $86 Million Valuation". TechCrunch. Retrieved March 29, 2010.
  36. ↑ Raice, Shayndi (May 15, 2012). "Former Facebook Hands Capitalize on Buzz". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved July 17, 2012. Quora raised $50 million in a new financing that values it at $400 million, up from a valuation of around $86 million two years ago, said people familiar with the matter. The new financing round is led by Facebook board member Peter Thiel, who invested with his own personal funds, May 15, 2012
  37. 1 2 Facebook Alums Push Q&A Site Quora. Wall Street Journal. May 15, 2012.
  38. ↑ "V.C.'s Answer Yes to Quora". Nytimes.com. March 30, 2010. Retrieved March 29, 2010.
  39. ↑ Baig, Edward C. "Social-networking site Quora has answers to your questions". USA Today. Retrieved March 29, 2010.
  40. ↑ Yiannopoulos, Milo. "Quora will be bigger than Twitter". London: Telegraph. Retrieved March 29, 2010.
  41. ↑ "Is Quora the biggest blogging innovation in 10 years". Scobleizer. Retrieved March 29, 2010.
  42. ↑ "Why I was wrong about Quora as a blogging service...". Scobleizer. January 30, 2011. Retrieved August 9, 2011.
  43. ↑ "CNN 2010 Smartest People in Tech". Money.cnn.com. July 9, 2010. Archived from the original on July 12, 2010. Retrieved March 31, 2015.
  44. ↑ "Top 30 Under 30, 2011". inc.com.
  45. ↑ "Honoree Profiles for C.Cheever, A.D'Angelo, Top 30 Under 30, 2011". inc.com.
  46. ↑ "This is a bit fucked, Quora". Giantrobotlasers.com. August 13, 2012. Retrieved April 6, 2013.
  47. ↑ "Quora Privacy Policy". Retrieved April 7, 2014.
  48. ↑ McCarthy, Andrew (June 1, 2016). "How should I retrieve a deleted answer from a Quora user?". Quora. Retrieved July 31, 2016.
  49. ↑ Mill, Eric (October 15, 2014). "Quora keeps the world's knowledge for itself". Retrieved July 31, 2016.
  50. ↑ Bea, Francis (October 30, 2012). "Quora Introduces Top Writers, Drives Attention – and rewards – to its Most Influential Users". Digital Trends.
  51. 1 2 3 "Quora". Https:. Retrieved July 1, 2015.
  52. ↑ "Q&A search site Quora opens to the public". CNET. Retrieved July 1, 2015.
  53. ↑ "Meet Quora's New Grown-Up: Elevation Partners' Marc Bodnick". Business Insider. Retrieved July 1, 2015.
  54. ↑ "Why did Quora choose C++ over C for its high performance services? - Quora". Quora.com. Retrieved February 12, 2011.
  55. ↑ "Quora Adds Video To Its Q&A Pages". Techcrunch.com. Retrieved July 1, 2015.
  56. ↑ "Quora Testing User Credits For "Ask To Answer" Questions". Techcrunch.com. Retrieved July 1, 2015.
  57. ↑ "Quora Gets Threaded Comments, Comment Voting, Editing And Images". Techcrunch.com. Retrieved July 1, 2015.
  58. ↑ Yung-Hui, Lim (September 12, 2012). "Co-Founder Charlie Cheever Leaves And Quora Is Curve Jumping". Forbes. Retrieved July 1, 2015.
  59. ↑ "Quora Introduces A New Top Writers Program As A Hat Tip To Its Most Valuable Contributors". Fastcompany.com. Retrieved July 1, 2015.
  60. ↑ "What is your favorite Quora policy or new feature? What Quora feature(s) should be improved or eliminated? - Quora". Https:. Retrieved October 10, 2016.
  61. ↑ "Quora Wants To Stay Independent, Raises $80M Series C From Tiger Global At ~$900M Valuation". Techcrunch.com. Retrieved July 1, 2015.
  62. ↑ "Quora Turns 80M Visitors Into Q&A Bounty Hunters With Knowledge Prizes". Techcrunch.com. Retrieved April 27, 2016.
  63. ↑ "Quora's first acquisition is Arab Spring instigator's Q&A site Parlio". Techcrunch.com. Retrieved April 27, 2016.
  64. ↑ "Quora begins testing ads on 'small number' of question pages". Venturebeat.com. Retrieved April 27, 2016.
  65. ↑ "Expanding Quora Beyond English Into Spanish". Retrieved August 2, 2016.

External links

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