What is Quora? A Social Media Crush.

Unless you’ve been living under a server the past few months, you’ve at least heard of Quora.  The relatively new platform, founded by two former Facebook executives focuses on questions.  (Perhaps it is no coincidence that Facebook is also developing a Question/Answer feature…)

It’s had a lot of buzz lately in the marketing industry.

As social media folk, we’re excited by the possibilities Quora brings to the table.  We’re WOWed by it’s appearance and structure and skin.  We are enamored with the IDEA of it, even though we don’t know all that much about it.  We love reading about it and those of us who are on it can’t stop talking about it.

Basically, we’re crushing on Quora…this week.

Oh, we aren’t playas, but, damn, do we crush a lot!

Remember that one-night stand we had with About.me last month?  Did we conveniently lose their phone number over the holidays?

Google Wave asked us to the Prom, but we just didn’t get it’s appeal.  So we asked Google Buzz to at least dance with us.  (It was awkward, since she saw us dancing with Twitter…more on that later…)

FourSquare is the new girl in school that is SO hot that nobody actually talks to her.

MySpace is the jealous ex…our first love trying to stay in our lives.  (I guess that makes Friendster a pre-school playdate?)

For the past several years, we’ve been in a long-term, committed relationship with Facebook.  It’s our main squeeze…and though we may stray from time to time, we know where our bread is buttered.

Twitter‘s become our super-cool, trouble-making best friend, with LinkedIn our really smart classmate that we’re proud of, but don’t quite understand (like Screech on Saved by the Bell!).  Digg is that guy who remembers everything about everything about everything.

(YouTube and Flickr are in the family…we love them, but they are SO one-trick ponies!)

So where will Quora end-up?  Will it become part of our family or something we run away from when we’re unexpectedly at the same party?

Quora has a lot of positives.  I’m impressed with their instant integration with Facebook, Twitter and Gmail.  But at the same time, it’s going to take time to get used to their quirks.  I mean, it’s a lot different than the networks we usually hang out with.  It’s much more democratic than other networks – can brands leverage the platform?  Or are they at the mercy of the people?

Social media developer Peter Corbett said he’s already made some business connections via Quora.  (While Peter and I have differences of dress code, I have a lot of respect for him and he runs a REALLY impressive shop.)  So there’s at least one success story I’m aware of…and I’m sure there are tons of other connections being made on there every second.

My take?  I need to go on more than a few dates with Quora to know where it’s going to go, but the relationship is off to a good start.

What’s your take on Quora?