If you have not heard of it you are not alone, until a few days ago neither had I.  The site has been acclaimed by The Telegraph as going to be ‘bigger than twitter’.

How true this is going to be only time will tell but there has been a noticeable flood of early adopters eager to sign up, so much so that their servers have been struggling to cope at times. But what is it that is causing all this fuss?

Quora.com is simply a Question & Answer site where you create an account using either your email and a password or via your Facebook or Twitter account.  Once you are in your profile has a twitter resemblance about it with your picture and the ability to follow people and have followers.

You can then search topics and follow them, ask questions and give your responses to others queries.  In essence it is a simple concept that has been done in different fashions for years with Yahoo Answers amongst others.

What it gives people is another avenue in which to increase their personal influence for the very same reasons why people take part in LinkedIn Q&A section now.  So there is some potential in there from a personal brand perspective certainly.

The Telegraph uses this elequent description of Quora; “Twitter was fun for the few, but Quora will be useful to the many. It’s is the place to go for on-demand answers to specific questions from people who know what they’re talking about. That’s something no search engine – or existing social network – comes close to.”

There are plenty of CEO’s, Directors and digital experts who have joined up and are asking and answering away. The highest profile being former AOL Chairman Steve Case, who has been a keen advocate of the site.

It is very much a tech/early adopter platform as we speak and there will be questions as to how it will deal with large volumes of users and spam in the coming months. But it is not only The Telegraph that is waxing lyrical about the site, with headlines being written such as;

Is Quora the Breakout Site for 2011? (The Next Web)

Google’s’ Head of Design gushes about how great Quora is (The Business Insider)

A perfect storm for Q&A site Quora (CNET)

For me, it is one that is worth testing and finding out the implications for myself and my clients.  I’ve often been stumped for an answer where you either Google it or ask your Twitter friends (which can be very hit-and-miss). This fills that void and as long as there are good people posting interesting answers it will be relevant and continue to grow very fast. 

There are certainly benefits for individuals and small companies. Quora.com is simple to use and has an obvious purpose, something many people struggle with when it comes to Twitter.  As long as it can keep developing and avoid becoming a pit of stupid questions with even more stupid answers then the future looks bright for Quora.