Quora iOS, Android Apps Get Blogging Features

I’ve mostly been immune to Quora cultism. But with its new iPhone and Android apps, that may change. But not for the reasons you might think.

Quora is a community-sourced question-and-answer website. Unlike some similar sites, however, you can find notable names answering questions posted on Quora, including Silicon Valley venture capitalist Marc Andreesseen. It has a following with start-ups and tech companies. And generally speaking, the answers offered on Quora are thoughtful.

So why have I been hesitant to embrace Quora? Mostly because there’s only so much time in the day. In addition to this blog, I’m also constantly posting to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, YouTube, WordPress and Blogger. (My Tumblr blog just sits there, wondering what the hell happened to me.) Add Quora to the mix too? Are you kidding?

Recently, however, a couple of things have caused me to rethink my Quora indifference. A source I interviewed recently for a feature on search-engine-optimization (SEO) tools, Matt McGee, says he uses Quora to generate ideas for blog posts. Given the high-quality content on Quora, that’s a great idea.

Also, Quora just added blogging features. The company says active writers on Quora can average 30,000 or more monthly page views. Quora blogs, therefore, can help subject matter experts raise their online profiles, and thus their brands, in a potentially meaningful way.

Now to the apps. Quora on iOS and Android (both are free) let you create brand-new Quora-hosted blogs and post to those blog. The Android version has additional tablet optimization features in landscape mode and, for 10-inch tablets, in portrait and landscape modes. The iOS app, however, isn’t optimized for iPads.

Both apps support voice dictation, which in theory makes it easy to write Quora blog posts. Dictation worked beautifully on my Android phone, but unfortunately, the iOS app kept crashing whenever I tried to dictate text.

So I’m now giving Quora blogs a try, with a blog on iPhone and Android apps as a companion to this blog. In other words, I’m going to finally see what this cult is all about.

(Screenshot: Quora)