Neuroscience Explains Popularity of Quora

Conversations between strangers often start with questions: What do you do for a living? What is your major? What is your sign? The question and answer (Q&A) exchange is fundamental to our daily social interactions.

What is it about Q&A that makes it primed for online community formation? There are many popular online Q&A services: Quora, Yahoo! Answers, StackOverflow to name a few. For each, millions of people from around the world contribute tremendous knowledge for free. What is the secret formula behind unlocking this crowd-sourced magic?

The presentation reviews fundamentals of what neuroscience has uncovered about social behavior, and how that explains the popularity of and mechanism behind Q&A sites. There will be practical takeaways on how you can apply neurological principles to site and community design - including topics such as gamification and incentive theory.

The presenters are PhDs in Economics from Harvard and Neuroscience from UCSF.

Additional Supporting Materials

http://www.slideshare.net/penguinorama/neuroscience-and-quora

Questions Answered

What is the neurological basis of why Q&A exchange elicits such strong responses?
Why do people contribute great answers to Q&A sites for free?
What kind of content makes for a good Q&A site?
What is different between a forum site and a Q&A site?
What principles help structure a great Q&A site?