Are you serious about Quora? I'm going to go with no.[1] With the text blurring and desperate requests for Facebook signin details Quora is basically expertsexchange for SV insiders now.
Given the text blurring is a form of cloaking (showing one thing to the search engine, nothing to people who come in from a search) I think search engines should viciously rank them down too. And I don't care if there is some "easy" way to get around the blur (like the "scroll down" for expertsexchange or whatever it was), it's not obvious and it just pollutes the search results. Get rid of it. That said, as was mentioned elsewhere on HN recently, Stackoverflow needs a place for more meta questions to be moved rather than deleted as you can occasionally get a useful one that isn't just rehashing things we've seen 1000 times.
In Quora's case the text blurring applies both to search engines and users. I've visited the site as the googlebot user agent and it is exactly the same as what non-logged in users see. They also aren't doing any tricks to hide the full response in the HTML.
Also FYI, most major search engines have "secret" IPs from which they crawl websites using normal user agents (ex: Chrome, Firefox, etc). They then compare the results to the results from their main crawlers to detect the type of cloaking you referred to.
> I've visited the site as the googlebot user agent and it is exactly the same as what non-logged in users see
.. except, of course, that the googlebot just reads the HTML. The CSS3 blur only causes problems when you try to read the site visually, via a browser.
> They also aren't doing any tricks to hide the full response in the HTML.
Yes, that's why the googlebot can read it.
I don't know why you're bothering to argue that this isn't cloaking. It most assuredly is.
I guess I should be clearer. The full responses aren't in the HTML at all. The blur effect is just images. Neither you or google see the full responses
Quora may be blurring things for both googlebot and users but it still does not excuse the fact that they are deliberately obscuring content for non-logged in users. So in this respect, they are no better than expertsexchange except maybe a less unfortunate name.
I just when back and checked, it's a png of blurred text so it isn't really cloaking. Google presumably can't see that text but it gets indexed from the question, the first answer and the first words of the other answers though. Either way it's a page that's mostly useless getting indexed. Are the results higher because Google thinks a series of images surrounded by relevant text probably have relevant content? Are the results higher from the days when they didn't blur and got a half decent page rank (all those links still pointing at them)? I think Google recalculates fairly frequently, and I personally haven't seen as much Quora in my searches - but it's hard to escape personalisation see the DuckDuckGo experiment - so maybe they are on the decline. That's another argument against them being a one billion dollar company though.
It's missing so many companies it's hard to know where to begin. The list probably represents only a fraction of billion dollar software companies founded over the last decade. It's heavily skewed towards both American and b2c companies.
Great list. I added a bunch of them. I should clarify that in the context of the quote, he was mostly talking about mostly software tech companies founded (or for the most part operated) in US. Hence, I did not include the China and Russia companies. I also classify ZipCar as not really a software tech company.
I think its a common mistake to write off companies which have a physical aspect as "not software companies".
The company I work for delivers food to people, but we're very much a software company in that we couldn't possibly compete with the huge players in this market without smart software which lets us run it with the minimum of people. I'm fairly sure ZipCar are the same - there are many car hire organisations, but not that many which can get by without having to rent premises and huge numbers of people to look after car keys and signing in and out.
People underestimate Quora. They underestimate both Quora and Google+ like they did with Twitter, Facebook, Blogger and YouTube before them.
What people don't seem to get about both Quora and Google+ is that they are networks not based around the people you just randomly happen to know - but instead around the people and things that you are actually interested in. There's a huge difference between the two.
They are interest-based social networks and are essentially pulling niche, technical, specific forums, specific blogs, and just general chatter into one mainstream and real time feed - away from the pseudonym driven, trolling, harsh, fractured, and separate niche areas that we currently have in many areas (Yes I know both Twitter/YouTube began like this - but they have slowly become things you put on your business card/real business use and are based upon).
Quora should not be underestimated as a SV centric bubbletastic startup - although it often appears that way. But then again, so did Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, and even YouTube.
Quora is where you go to hang out with people who actually share your interests (and not just a zip code), talk about the things that you really care about (not about who was the most drunk on the weekend) and just generally talk shop about the world, with the added benefit of a centralized repository where content bubbles up everyday (kind of like YouTube's subscriptions feature). No more refreshing pages :D.
Quora is like the Hacker News for everything else that doesn't already have its own Hacker News with really, really, freaking good UI, addictive game mechanics and really good content filtering.
Quora should not be underestimated. And neither should Google+.
I don't have much of an opinion on Quora and want it to succeed, but your claims seem rather... grandiose. From what I've seen Quora fairs well in very specific situations (where it has a large userbase of people knowledgeable in that specific niche) and then it's mediocre everywhere else. I've never thought "this is the future" while using Quora.
Do you have any examples of Quora that show the potential you talk about? I guess it can be argued "If Quora has a large userbase that are knowledgable in every niche then it will take over the world!" but that sort of argument can extend to almost any service. I see Stackexchange as the biggest competitor to Quora and in my experience Stackexchange is fairing much better (both in users and interfaces, I'd much rather ask a question on a SE site vs. Quora, for example).
StackExchange still has the pseudonym problem. It is also about 10x as harsh and severely limits itself, by well, limiting the actions of their participating clientele. Stack Exchange has relegated itself with it's strict standards to little more than a technical help resource - for the vast majority of use cases.
You don't go to StackExchange to hang out - you go there to ask answer/ask questions. It's like Wikipedia.
On extrapolations:
All large future extrapolations appear, by definition, to be grandiose. If they weren't - well then it would be bloody well bleeding obvious what was about to happen then wouldn't it :D - and it would go without me having to say so.
> Quora fairs well in very specific situations (where it has a large userbase of people knowledgeable in that specific niche) and then it's mediocre everywhere else.
Same with anything else. This is a truism.
The only thing I can say to people is this:
Whenever people tell you to look into something that appears curious - try it for 2 weeks and make your own judgement.
You mean the Psuedonym feature. I participate on various stackexchanges with different aliases (sometimes on the same stackexchange) because I don't want anyone to be able to profile me.
I don't contribute on Quora, even though I have a lot to contribute.
Oh, you'd be amazed at the number of times I managed to get an edge on a competitor by googling - e.g. knowing where their technical problems are, how they are going to approach a prospect, etc -- and all of that without having to leave my keyboard.
You're welcome to try to figure out what line of business I am in, which company, etc. There are a few posts I made on several stack exchanges which would give my competitors a big advantage while competing for a client.
Sure. At Citrix we use the Haskell compiler ghc. I mention that quite often, and also that we have problems with cross-compiling. Recently I've been approached by one of the people involved in developing the cross-compiling capabilities of ghc of how they can help. (We want cross-compiling, they want people using their code and reporting bugs.)
Basically, you want to be known to people who you have opportunities to win-win interactions with (aligned interests), and avoid being known to people who could exploit you to your disadvantage (opposed interests).
Depending on what you want to optimize for, or what kind of interactions you feel are prevalent, having a consistent identity will help or hinder you. Of course, it's not a binary choice.
You don't go to StackExchange to hang out - you go there
to ask answer/ask questions. It's like Wikipedia.
Maybe I'm missing some portion of Quora then, but that's exactly how I use Quora. I've never found any indication on Quora that I can do anything other than ask and answer questions.
Whenever people tell you to look into something that
appears curious - try it for 2 weeks and make your own
judgement.
That's what I've been trying to do, I've even gone out of my way to ask questions on Quora just so I can understand the experience, my problem seems to be that how you're describing it (as some form of community?) does not match how I've experienced it.
Perhaps there is a feature or section of the site I'm not aware of? As I mentioned, some sort of example on Quora or Quora being this fascinating and valuable community experience would be great, because I just can't find it.
My experience with Quora mirrors your own. However a friend of mine was absolutely nuts about it, he chalked it up to having found a group of people to follow who were asking and answering interesting questions.
This difference made Quora less of a Q+A site and more of an interesting news, facts and opinions site to him.
Ditto. Quora's strength is only the competencies of the people who contribute. With any Q/A site that deals with subjective content that isn't moderated by knowledgeable/qualified persons in those matters, it's more of a rush to see who can answer the question first with the most words and inflated vocabulary to warrant upvotes more than it is a place to get real responses. When anyone and everyone is allowed to pour in their two cents, and especially when credence is given based on popularity or place of employ, the results cannot be taken as seriously as they could be. Doubly so when it is used as a means to advertise your half-baked startup initiative.
If profit were the only things that mattered then Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google could never have gotten off the ground. Those things hemorrhaged cash for years.
It's how startups work. They are risky. They are unlikely to succeed. They often look like complete jokes.
And that's why you have to watch them carefully. Because it's the stuff you don't notice that really gets you.
Names are just a way to tie you to an identity, if you can rely on someone to always be under the same name you can treat it just as if it were their real name (even if it isn't). I run a large forum (a community) and a huge number of people have formed value relations through it and they exist under pseudonyms.
For me personally most people that know of me know me by my username (citricsquid) and wouldn't be able to tell you my real name, so if I appear on a website as "Samuel Ryan" they're not going to have a clue who I am and would gain a lot more value if I was displayed under the identity they know me as (citricsquid).
The reason Facebook uses real names is just because it's how people are known in real life, Facebook exists as an extension of real life and so using real names is the sensible decision that provides most value to users.
And even then, some people sign up to Facebook using a fake name, so that they can connect to some people they know in real life while avoiding other people they know in real life. (e.g. to talk to friends while avoiding colleagues and clients.)
That's not hard to imagine, people did it on MySpace and Friendster. These days, Facebook isn't really much better or different from those earlier social networks.
Still uses pseudonyms. Sounds like a small difference. It isn't.
Facebook existed before, on millions of forums, blogs, websites and various accounts. But what changed everything was using real names. It was the real names and social proof that changed everything from something a bunch of nerds used (like IRC/various chat services/various forums) - to something everyone needed to be on and used daily.
Reddit/HN will remain non-mainstream for the foreseeable future.
If we're going by page views then I'm sure many unsavory sites have many more. Still not mainstream - or not in the way that you think.
My point with mainstream was not views. My point with mainstream was that it will become something normal people could potentially use.
I like to think of reddit/StackExchange as the mid point between the completely disparate forums and a Facebook like interest based real-name social network.
You have a skewed perspective on Reddit. It absolutely is mainstream already, and will become more so over time.
When your website has that many uniques, and its subculture has been referenced by mainstream brands, TV shows, and continually shows up in real life (I just saw a local pizza shop that used an Advice Animal on a sandwich board outside), you are mainstream. When the President of the United States holds a Q&A session on your site, you are mainstream. When the internal drama of your website makes it onto the NYTimes and CNN, you are mainstream.
It's grown far, far beyond the internet-nerd stronghold it was a few years ago. Hell, at this point my humanities major friends are on Reddit, even if they don't comment.
Compare with Quora - which has made few inroads to any community besides "Silicon Valley Insider". The vast majority of content there is still about the tech industry and startups, and even on other topics the vast majority of commenters have tech industry/startup backgrounds. Mainstream? Really?
It may be that in the future a real-name-driven community will take the crown from Reddit as biggest community on the internet, but that's a long way from today, and I seriously doubt it will come in the form of Quora.
Shit, I just visited my Quora profile and one of the top 3 questions in my feed is "Quora Employees: Are Kah Seng Tay and Kah Keng Tay related?". This community is self-absorbed and self-referential in ways that even Reddit can't match.
What nonsavory forums have more pageviews or uniques than Reddit? And are you seriously saying that "normal people" don't use Reddit? Where is traffic coming from?
I'm not convinced that using real names gives such a massive benefit, in general. It's true that they brought Facebook into the mainstream and cause people to be on their best behavior. But are you 100% certain that this is what you want for a community like Quora?
At the very least, there is a strong case for keeping anonymity around, because this leads to good discussions about subjects that can't be discussed under real names - for one reason or the other. This is why I don't see reddit displaced in the near or medium term.
I'm not sure if this refutes your point, though. But real names make people keep their mouth shut in situations that might put them in a bad light, or might come back to bite them in the ass. How can you be sure that this isn't something that will limit Quora as well? Like I said, I'm not sure if I disagree with you. But the advangates of real-world online identities don't seem as obvious to me as you claim.
I think the biggest impact of real names on Quora is their impact on quality and personal branding. People post on Quora a lot more for vanity/business promotion than they do on Reddit. So from that standpoint, Reddit is much richer in what people will say but also a lot noisier. What it implies to me is that Quora has a much lower ceiling for engagement, especially since everything is public (unlike Google+ or Facebook) so people are especially careful about what they say there. In other words, Quora simply can't take over the world because the vast majority of people don't want to have their thoughts so publicly available.
Pseudonyms have been proven to improve dialogue because anonymity means honesty or at least a willingness to communicate without concern of reputation. No one wants their real names attached to their opinions on the internet, as those opinions are likely to change or come back to haunt them in the future, just like nobody wants to be doxx'd even if they haven't done anything wrong. It's just an invasion of privacy that doesn't need to exist for conversation to happen. I feel like I've cited the Blizzard RealID debacle a lot lately, but it fits the bill here too.
I'd be interested to see that proof if you have scientific studies supporting it - sounds fascinating!
It's been my experience that communication quality has more to do with initial culture, growth rate, and ability to inculcate newcomers to social norms than with naming policies. Of course, the need to grow a community slowly to maintain social norms conflicts with the imperative placed on VC-funded companies to grow as fast as possible.
I tried to find it for the previous post, but couldn't recall the name (though I think I found it here on HN). I will keep searching when I have a few minutes as I've needed to cite it before.
"Pseudonyms have been proven to improve dialogue because anonymity means honesty or at least a willingness to communicate without concern of reputation."
Have you been to Reddit lately? Pseudonyms has brought out the worst in many people, mostly because they know it's not attached to a reputation.
"No one wants their real names attached to their opinions on the internet"
Why? If you really can't stand behind your opinion, what's the point in having it in the first place?
People being assholes on the internet isn't new, nor is the fact that administrative failure in the form of moderation is the reason why communities of all sizes go down the drain. While Reddit wants to thrive on the fact that there are very little limitations to the platform as a whole, the problems they are facing are due in part to the fact that there are no repercussions for trolls, doxxing and the like.
There are a lot of reasons people want to stay anonymous that has nothing to do with cowardice, and that's why I cited the RealID case, because it sprouted a lot of conversation on why we prefer to remain unknown and separate our real selves from other personas. The [wonderful] acceptance speech Lana Wachowski gave last month during the Human Rights Campaign Awards went into why both her and her brother preferred staying out of the spotlight, but what it specifically meant to her as someone that was susceptible to unwanted attention and criticisms. As a woman, I can relate, and that's why I am so adamant about this issue.
> Why? If you really can't stand behind your opinion, what's the point in having it in the first place?
This is a really naive way of looking at opinions. They change. People grow. Why do people post anonymously to begin with? To avoid witch hunts by people that don't believe what they do, potentially dangerous people who are willing to trace that name to your workplace, your address or even just use your likeness to propagate lies. How many services are there to de-rank unsavory Google results under your name? It's truly better to be safe than sorry.
> If you really can't stand behind your opinion, what's the point in having it in the first place?
What's the point of knowing something most people don't or of having a belief, unless the credit for it can be connected to your address or mother's maiden name?
I don't understand this sentiment at all. When I'm complimented for something that I've said anonymously from someone who has chosen to remain anonymous - I'm happy that I could help someone, or that I made someone smile. It doesn't matter who that someone is, and it doesn't matter whether they know where I work, or where my sister works.
In fact, I would prefer that they not know any of that stuff. I'm not sure why people don't understand pen names, why they are useful, and why they always have been.
> Why? If you really can't stand behind your opinion, what's the point in having it in the first place?
If you can't stand behind your vote by writing your real name directly on your ballot, what's the point in voting in the first place?
Your identity and standing behind your opinion have no correlation, just like they don't when you vote. History shows that unnecessarily joining them has dangerous consequences, however.
I personally feel its easy for a startup to start in West rather than starting in East. There are some problems in Eastern countries like India, China due to which not many of the startups are able to get converted into a really big one. They are still like slaves. While the quantity of startups getting successful is really high in western countries.
Don't argue that its because of intelligence, perhaps I think they are even better in this.
You need to keep the date in mind when reading this though. More recent years will over-represent fast growers, underrepresent slow growers and include more speculative valuations (ie some companies will eventually exist the list).
Give 2010 another few years and it could be a completely different list. The 1998 list OTOH will probably stay pretty much the same.
I've never been to quora before today. I've always understood it to be a general purpose Q&A site. Given all the chatter in this thread about it, I decided to go there to see what it's about.
Is it just me, or is this a rather opaque view of the content? For example, the "B" section for topics doesn't have "bicycles", but it does have "Bizplay - Black Magic Design". I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
I don't know about some of those "billion dollar" valuations. But point taken, US is able to churn out very successful tech companies. We're doing something right.
Looking at this and thinking about how many companies created each year that are worth even a million dollars that aren't close to being on this, that must be an optimistic number.
With a more intricate list this could provide some neat data. Most successful time of year to start your company, synchronous business tactics used by those companies, I'm sure there's more.
Wow. Every 3 months! I was thinking what 2011 and 2012 companies might be included in that list in the future?
Also, I noticed that most if not all of these companies are Silicon Valley startups. Maybe the frequency of billion dollar companies will increase if the list includes companies world wide.
Great and inspiring list. But I think there should be a difference between companies that crossed the $1B worth in the open stock market, and companies that got this value by external purchase.
And yet they are a safer bet compared to your usual Startup. The demand will exist forever and the revenue model is pretty obvious (adult ads/products).
Given the text blurring is a form of cloaking (showing one thing to the search engine, nothing to people who come in from a search) I think search engines should viciously rank them down too. And I don't care if there is some "easy" way to get around the blur (like the "scroll down" for expertsexchange or whatever it was), it's not obvious and it just pollutes the search results. Get rid of it. That said, as was mentioned elsewhere on HN recently, Stackoverflow needs a place for more meta questions to be moved rather than deleted as you can occasionally get a useful one that isn't just rehashing things we've seen 1000 times.
[1]http://www.quora.com/Programming-Languages/In-laymans-terms-...