Quora + Ethereum = Cent.co ~ Here are my thoughts

I saw a post about Cent.co and it sounded fascinating to someone like me, who enjoys sharing his opinion online. I'm always giving my opinion on Twitter for free ... why not get a little ETH in return for helpful advice.

Here's how it works:

It's fairly straightforward. Post a question and a bounty. People answer and vote on each other's answers. After a period of time, comments & voting closes and the reward is shared proportionately to the answers by votes received.

It's an interesting paid content model, slightly more accessible than the pay-per-task model employed by 21.co, and possibly more straightforward than what I'm writing on now, Steemit, in that you get ETH direct to your wallet without using an intermediary coin or token.

Your desk research for $2

I did a quick test, asking members for a list of links to blockchain projects in media & entertainment, provided a bounty in the amount of $2 and waited for results. The next day, I was pleased to find a variety of useful posts in response. Perhaps the same is possible on Quora, but not with a 24hr turnaround time – this is a great model for doing quick desk research.

Will it succeed?

There's no doubt that posting a question and a bounty will receive answers, that's apparent. However, whether or not the platform succeeds will be determined by the regularity of questions, the volume of questions (which needs to match the volume of answers for it to remain an incentive), and the quality of the answers (or else posting a bounty will not be worth it).

I would say the target audience for this is marketing departments. If Cent.co can position themselves as the go-to service for quick answers to marketing questions & polls, they could find an audience with the need for answers, and the budget for funding them.

They will also need to ensure the quality of respondents, or else people asking the questions will be overloaded by poor quality answers. To that end, I'd recommend a reputation score - for instance, if you have to successfully answer some lower value questions before you can qualify to answer higher value ones.

I do not think Cent.co should be thinking of themselves as the new Quora. The motivation for answering questions on Quora is to establish yourself as an expert. If you're answering for financial gain only – then people will be encouraged to game the system and give the answer likely to be voted up, rather than the correct or honest answer.

Final thoughts

I'd like to see this service succeed. I think content-based incentives, and knowledge-based incentives are an exciting area to see cryptocurrency markets develop into. Provided the incentive structure is correct, the idea that services can continually build a knowledge-base is very attractive.

Good luck!