Back in 2009 I wrote a post about why I thought Facebook was going to be epic-ly successful by noting that “Facebook” had more search volume than possibly anything else on the web. We will have some answers soon with the impending IPO.
But now that it’s 2012 my new prediction is Quora. No, it’s not a Facebook scale company in the making (I don’t think), but here is why I believe Quora is crazy disruptive. Quora is a brand that stands for the best answer. And thus, it threatens Google.
Sure, I am biased because I work in tech and thus much of the information I search for tends to be of the type Quora caters to. That said, a new behaviro I have developed is appending the term “Quora” to 30-40% of my Google searches.
Example: Mother’s day is coming up and we’re planning on a dinner in New Haven. I went to Google and searched for:
“best restaurants new haven quora”
BAM: http://www.quora.com/What-are-good-restaurants-in-New-Haven-CT
Simple. Successful. I am guaranteed that the top answer is not gamed, SEO bullshit. Plus, I get the added benefit that many Quora users have tastes similar to my own. It’s vertical search. Better search.
As an aside, I much prefer searching for Quora answers using Google than using Quora’s own search engine. If I were Quora, I’d focus on getting more people to search the way I do (Wikipedia has crushed it) rather than trying to be a self-contained portal. Then again, can you trust Google?