The First Decentralized Quora Alternative Now Available as a Mobile App on the Steem Blockchain
The slightly unfortunately named What Q&A, has recently launched as a mobile app for iOS.
The concept of the app is simple: ask questions and answer. Great questions and answers can benefit from the unique Steem blockchain reward system.
Question and Answer is a no-brainer vertical to be built on the Steem blockchain, almost literally implementing the concept of Proof of Brain by which the best answers get rewarded most.
The mobile app is clean and easy to navigate and login is offered via SteemConnect. Once logged in the user has three different feeds highlighted: New, Following, Trending.
What Q&A also has other smart navigation options, highlighted by the bottom nav bar: one option is the main feed, users can also left or right swipe to navigate What Q&A, as well as visit their own answers they have given and of course their own profile. Profiles which show one's questions asked as well as answers posted.
Posting and answering support Markdown.
Like most other interfaces which focus on one specific use case or content verticals, What Q&A (Steem user account: @what-app) only shows content posted through its mobile app. Currently, there is no desktop version available for the initial release of the platform.
Each question on What Q&A is a post on the Steem blockchain, answers show as comments. Both can be upvoted by Steemians. Similar to Utopian-io, what-app also adds a small footer to each post (question) when submitting it to the Steem blockchain, promoting the use of What Q&A the platform.
Asking a new question is as simple as hitting the ask or pencil in the top navigation. The question template is clean and easy to use, although there may b some ambiguity about the category and tag. Like most Steem apps, What Q&A sets its own tag as first tag, thus the Steem category. Additionally, it offers the user to select one category, as well as add up to 3 tags. This may be confusing to many.
Overall I liked the app very much, as well as the basic concept. Combined with Steem's reward principles and also reputation management, What Q&A can become a major player in the question and answer niche online.
Currently, the app is still in a very basic, minimal format and maybe the team may have to consider future additional features such as the option to answerer to post a mini-bio specific to the question, in order to highlight their knowledge and/or experience, in other words why their answer should be considered. But What Q&A is off to a good start and could become one of the more disruptive Steem apps.
What Q&A is available for iOS with the Android version coming soon. Follow @what-app or head over to the project's website to stay updated with the latest evolution.
What's next? A decentralized Stackexchange alternative on the Steem blockchain? Hopefully, first the What Q&A team will also receive a significant delegation from @mrdelegation.
Thanks for your review
Right now it only appeals to the Steemit community as we wanted to get the fundamentals done first and we definitely have ideas that will be implemented soon.
I do admit to the inconsistencies regarding the name and if I'm not able to get what.com soon then a rebrand is certain.
No problem, I’m a fan as you know. My alt is on many questions. :)
These are merely initial teething issues. I believe in the project, it’s a natural fit for the Steem blockchain and wish you the best of success with it.
You have my participation. 👊
What's wrong with the name?
It did catch me off guard though, likely is a nightmare for being found on search engines.
That is a natural fit for the steem blockchain.
So you get paid for asking good questions also?
I was itching to try it out but looks like I have to wait for Android :(
Yes, questions can also be upvoted.
I was wondering when someone would get around to this sort of thing. Though I was hoping more for a stackoverflow or an askubuntu or what-have-you, but vote-able with steem instead of some useless reputation on a third party site that doesn't pay you... I'm annoyed that one is supposed to use an app though and that the main web site doesn't at least imitate the mobile app. I'm looking forward to seeing the desktop version, assuming it's not a fat client.
Stackoverflow I meant, obviously.
The lack of a website, which can then be presented in a webview based app, often baffles me nowadays. Surely a website would help with the growth of the project.
Why is the naming unfortunate?
I'm with @eonwarped.
First of all there’s the inconsistency between What Q&A and the Steem account @what-app.
All rather confusing when telling somebody about and referring them to the App Store. Not to forget the closeness to that messaging app.
I’m not sure the logo reflects the name either.
Lastly, I think What Q&A has zero branding value whatsoever.
But that’s ok, early days. Twitter also started as twttr, names can change.
The app icon.
Agreed. This sounds like a great idea and I'm on board. Both the name and @what-app account make me think of what's app. Hard to search for and very similar to an existing app.
Ah I see now. Yeap the logo is also hideous.
One more reason why the name is unfortunate