All week everyone has been buzzing about Quora. What is it? 

Well it is basically a blend of Yahoo Answers and Wikipedia – although this last week has seen a rise in the number of people who have joined the site it has actually been around since June 2010.

A basic break down of the site is that a user can add a question to the forum and get the public to answer them. 

You can also follow people, like Twitter, and get their questions, and answers, in your main feed. 

So... why do you need it in your lives? 

Mmm, that is actually a good question – the type of people using it are throwing out tech related questions, probably because of the recent advertising on sites such as TechCrunch and The Next Web... but it isn’t aimed specifically at any sector.

Signing up is relatively easy and you do not need much help to figure out what to do, however be warned it will continually spam you a collection of unanswered questions, notifications and anything else it wants. Remember do not ask for email notifications!

However, if you take off email notifications you will have to constantly check to see if anyone has answered your question – a little time consuming!

It is always nice to see who is following you but the new notifications on the home page can be a bit much, as they only go away when you ask for them to be cleared! Your followers are likely to be the same lot who already follow you on Twitter – as Quora grabs your following list and imports it. You could end up boring your followers on both Twitter and Quora as you post the same question – oh and don’t forget facebook... you can post it there!

The plus points are that you can use the site to ask, answer or find any question you want relatively easily. Much more informative than either Twitter of Facebook, plus big names are answering your questions – CEO’s and MD’s are giving you personal, honest answers. 

Of course, that is now – when it is new and popular - who knows how long it will be before the fad fades and it joins Yahoo Answers as a mainstream, non-factual and un-informative site. 

Watching Quora and its path is interesting, how long will it remain popular is anyone’s guess but unless they moderate spam and give users a better way to receive notifications it will just be a novelty.