First thoughts on Quora and hiatus for Scottish media blog

Blogger Adam Tinworth is someone who’s thoughts it’s wise to pay attention to, so it was interesting to read his opinion on Quora the new QandA platform which had us all in a tizz last week.

“My gut feeling, as I’ve blogged before, is that the Next Big Thing, whatever it turns out to be, won’t be this hyped. And Quora is really hyped right now. Every previous Next Big Thing, from blogging, through Flickr, Twitter, Facebook and more has gone through an extended period of quiet use by a small, but steadily growing pool of users and evangelists, before the real mainstream growth kicks in.”

I can’t help but agree.
My first experiences of Quora have resulted in two (interesting and helpful) answers to a question I asked about hyperlocal funding. Sounds good you might say, but the answers were from two well-informed people already in my Twitter network so I can’t help but feel the information could have been more easily garnered outside of the new service.
I then reversed the experience and answered a question about Delicious. The conversation which ensued (again with an active member of my Twitter network) seemed to resist me being able to continue the thread when a message popped up about participants being unable to make more than two comments – only edit the original one. This rather defeated the pleasure of having more than 140 characters to play with for a conversation.

Like Adam, I won’t dismiss it just yet but, to be truly useful, it will 1. have to be more widely adopted, 2. move me out of the bubble of my existing network and 3. be a bit less bossy about what is and isn’t allowed. (Oh, and the follow back functionality is a dog.)

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Sad to see that blogger Shaun Milne is hanging up his, erm, mouse (?) and calling it a day on the Milne Media blog.

“In recent months my post have become fewer and far between as I’ve tried to take a step back to concentrate on other work related projects, and to make less of a nuisance of myself.”

However, he doesn’t completely rule out a return while taking the break in part to concentrate on a charity fundraiser which you can find more about here; www.twofatladdies.co.uk

The blog has been one of the main sources of media related news snippets and insider commentary north of the border since 2004 – here’s hoping it’s silence won’t become permanent.