I’ve been pulling a ton of value out of Quora lately. The site is a Wikipedia of very smart and currently highly targeted ‘people knowledge’. The site is smooth as would be expected from the rock star ex-Facebookers running it. As a founder and entrepreneur, it gives me a place to ask very specific questions and get incredibly detailed and accurate answers from an exclusive group of Silicon Valley insiders.
For example I recently asked this question:
“How much did Google pay for Dodgeball?” to which I quickly got a response from Richard Ludlow, CEO of Academic Earth saying, “It’s widely rumored at $30 million.” Where else on the web would I post such a question? Unless I knew the right people there would be no way to find out information like this. As the site and userbase scales there is no telling how watered down this information is going to get, but at the moment it’s solid.
Here is a snapshot of a couple of questions you’d find under the topic of ‘Foursquare”: “Is it foolish for Yahoo to buy Foursquare?” “How did 4Sq generate so much so much press without a PR firm?” “How does 4Sq count users?”
The answers are insightful and interesting because the people answering them are both interesting and experts in the field. This afternoon I asked a question about Facebook’s purchase price for Parakey, the Joe Hewitt (iPhone Facebook App Creator) + Blake Ross (Firefox creator) startup. A few minutes later who responded? None other than the founder (Blake) himself! The conversation is pretty funny, see it below. Also, I have some invites left. Leave a comment if you’re interested in getting one, or reach me on Twitter @derekjandersen.
