Ready for all sorts of Social Media Creamy Goodness? So are we! Time to dive into these relatively new tools – and compare their utility with Twitter. Follow along, young Jedi.
First, Quora. Yes, another “Social Media Tool.” Not THAT kind of Social Media Tool – but the type that you can put to good use.
Questions and Answers on Steroids?
Another version of Yahoo!’s Q&A thing?
The LinkedIn Killer?
Honestly, kicking the tires on this puppy has led us to realize a couple of things here. First of all, you can probably get some good answers to your questions, and you can probably position yourself well as someone with something to say, if you use the site.
Secondly, it’s going to be a matter of time before the Spambots and “Social Media Tools” of the variety that try to sell you spambots and push-button systems get a hold of Quora.
From a UX experience, it’s okay. I’m not turning cartwheels, but I’m not kicking my PC yet either.
From a “Why?” perspective – I’m still not convinced.
Twitter had me convinced within a few minutes of its usefulness. Dive in to conversations, make connections, learn from each other. Don’t totally get that yet with Quora.
Hashable. After just one use, I have earned “Hashcred.”
The next question is what I can DO with this Hashcred.
Probably more was written about Hashable after its launch than Quora. Probably less is being said about Hashable now on social media because, well, it’s more of a tool that sits on top of other sites than a stand-alone.
To try this out, I decided to connect an action IRL – in this case, sending mail to @JPedde, whom I owed a Slurpee Coin – and using the hashtag “#sentmail” to tag this action. Below is what transpired on the Hashable site.
Next, my Twitter account, which was linked to Hashable recently (earning me hashcred), posted a simple message:
Now what?
Well, while the motive APPEARS to be adding some real-life interaction to this online stuff we Social Media Types do all the time…Hashable might add a little less to the equation than Foursquare or Gowalla.
Plus, it doesn’t have all the Question and Answer capability of Quora.
So?
Verdict: Don’t Chase the Category Killers.
Seriously, these could both be great, world-beating tools. Or they could go the way of Netscape.
This brings us back to that advice that we’ve stuck to from the get-go:
Use what works for you. There are no rules. Dive in. Have fun. Don’t like it? Move on to something else.
Back to work, right?
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