I stopped using Aardvark for three reasons:
- It felt very transactional — it lacked soul and depth.
- It invaded my private space (my instant messenger sessions).
- It performed well at questions that classic search engines and/or discovery site like Yelp usually handle well e.g. what bike stores are in Palo Alto or where can I find a free SVN MacOS client. You can get answers to these questions without nagging somebody.
On the other hand, I have become a Quora addict for three reasons:
- Performs well at questions not well suited for a search engine: opinion, multiple constraints scenarios, hypothetical scenarios, etc. For example startup founders and investors commonly ask “How did company X get traction.” When somebody with knowledge of that company answers it provides insight that a search engine cannot find because that content previously did not exist.
- Provides depth and insight — by keeping questions alive, providing answer summaries, etc. the content can become richer.
- Feels like a natural conversation. Quora is like a party where you can jump in and out of conversations of interest. Whereas Aardvark which feels like a party where everybody is separated by a wall.
This blog post is adapted from my answer on Quora. You should follow me on Quora here.
At Work we instrument our products/services to ensure that we can track important metrics — as Peter Drucker said “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” Yet, for metrics that impact our quality of life @Home we have yet to develop products that help people efficiently manage some of the more important aspect of their lives:
companies in large industries — media, computer/devices, and micro-processors. With lots of cash on the balance sheets, confident execs, and smart folks on the payroll some of these growth companies (Google, Apple, HP, etc.) in these industries are starting to expand out of their core business. This expansion has been pushing the pendulum to a point where the concentration of power in Silicon Valley may soon hit a wall.