Whenever I visit Quora, I always see great content from you folks!

With that in mind, I was hoping to hear your insights on what makes Quora so great? What do they do right? What keeps you coming back? Most importantly, what do you think Branch can learn from their product?

Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts, and feel free to add anyone else!

I think the best thing about Quora is that you don't know what you're going to be served up when you log on. Sure you know the questions are going to be linked to the topics you follow, but you have no clue what you are going to learn when you type in 'quora.com'. Quora makes you question and think about things you've never thought about before, or change your perspective on things you already think you know. I think Branch can be similar. Branch will be attractive if new interesting content is available everytime I log on. Thats an issue with facebook - you know exactly whats coming when you visit it - Branch can be different, it can serve interesting varied content continuously and in real time

Awesome insight, Niall - thanks. I'm more interested in the content creation side of things though.

Why do people feel compelled to write answers? To ask questions? etc.

The conversations on Quora are super meaningful. Quora works well be it's categorized by interest, and people want to seen to their community as smart, so they post really great comments. Then, Quora does a good job at showing that content to me. I come back, because I love great content and it becomes a better experience than a Yahoo answers or something like that.

One of the things that I love about Quora is the ability to operate in an active mode (answering questions and replying to response) and a "passive active" mode (following questions, up/down voting) that surfaces content for your followers and that you receive from those that you follow. Even if I never type a response, its possible for me to leave a footprint on Quora and be of value. I read a lot of Branches but you may never know it because there is really no voyeuristic way to interact with the content. I appreciate the ability to fluctuate between behavioral modes on Quora.

hmmm ah yes sorry. For me certainly I've a compelling interest in two things. One - An interest in learning new things. This leads to me asking questions. Yes I can Google and use Wikipedia, but there is nothing like getting real info from an expert in the area you are interest. Its also why I'm a huge fan of StackOverflow. With that, its the quality that impresses me, the ability to rid the site of poor questions is mesmerizing to say the least. Anyway, the second interest is an interest in spreading knowledge. I suppose I appreciate the info others give me and want to do the same with others. [continued]

For some, there may be an ambition to gain upvotes etc but I think the majority of people on that site (and SO) are there because they've a desire to spread what they know. That what you were looking for Josh? :)

Their weekly digest is probably the best product they have built so far.

I ask a lot of questions because: 1) very low friction, not much work required 2) it's free 3) decent chance that will get answered 4) no better alternative for getting them answered

At the highest level, Quora has done a great job pulling in true experts on topics that are usually fairly complicated. I'm not sure how they do it, but they do it :) Those are the types of answers that always get me coming back no matter how busy I am. It's a great gateway drug to the rest of the product.

There's a latency in Branch and I am not sure if its a problem or a feature as of yet. But there are about 5 Branches in which I think I have something fairly high-level to contribute but I won't take the time to "ask to join" them all. There's something about the moment of inspiration to comment and doing it. That does not exist here and seemingly its too much to manage all of the "memberships" to those different convos.

I think ultimately what my 2 posts combined mean is that on a macro level I cannot spend all day on Branch and I can with Quora. Quora is a huge time suck (good for them, not for me) because there are no barriers to participation and accommodates for multiple behavior modes to interact with the content combined with the high level responses. Branch has the high level of content thus far but really only one way to participate and even that is delayed. I remember in an earlier iteration of Branch/Roundtable at that time you guys had something like that (side commenting). I'd be interested to hear the thoughts around why you decided to ditch that (not that it was the "right" answer but imho it showed you were aware of this issue).

I agree with basically everything that's been said. I liked Quora when I first discovered it, but I’ve spent more time there than I expected. Its employees accomplished that by rewarding my participation. In the six months since I signed up, I’ve been put on a monthly list of “great new users to follow,” one of my answers was featured on The Huffington Post through a partnership, I was inducted into its inaugural class of “top writers” (free t-shirt!) and I just found out one of my answers will be featured in the first edition of their “Best of Quora” book series. These quirky gifts have created a loyal faction of capable answerers, but each new perk also increases the volume of complaints that Quora is creating an elite social class.

Each platform is also producing different types of conversation. Whereas it seems Branch is intended to be more conversational, it’s less clear to me that it is. Some of the best conversations I’ve seen here have expired in one day — most in less than a week. Although Quora users can only answer a particular question once, subsequent answerers often refer to previous answers and build on them. Once a question is met with a satisfying answer, it is often upvoted, promoted and shared. Quora’s process expands the life of a conversation. As a content creator, this is what I want. I write good answers with the expectation that they will be appreciated. I've found some great conversations here, but I had to search hard for them. Why?

Finally, conversation is personal. I’ve gotten to know a handful of people through Quora, and those relationships give me a stake in the website and stimulate content creation. Branch seems to be leveraging the relationships people already have by integrating itself with Twitter. I think that's shortsighted: It will bring people here, but why should they stay? Yes, I can determine who a Branch user is by referring to their Twitter profile, but I will forevermore identify them as a Twitter user instead of a Branch user. Profile pages (and for that matter message systems) build relationships between people and your platform. Branch’s relationship-building infrastructure is relatively immature, and I think that limits my loyalty to Branch.

Tyler, completely agree that branches aren't as conversational as we would like, and that we desperately need an identity system on Branch. We're working on both, though I'd argue that "profile pages" are a "me too!" feature and we can do better. But we'll see :)

Thanks for the thoughtful feedback.