Two months ago, Quora was all the rage. For those of you who don’t have a clue what Quora is,  think some sort of combination of Linkedin, Wikipedia, Yahoo Answers and in some cases, honestly.com.  Or in their words…

“Quora is a continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it.”

I dabbled in it for a while, and actively followed David Armano’s (SVP at Edelman) updates and answers. He was great at it. But it seems as if is updates (and others) have slowed down a bit. Not sure why. There’s been some mixed reaction to is so far from other people in the social media space. Here are some good examples…

Now, as we gear up for SXSW in just a few short weeks, we’re hearing lots of buzz about Hashable. Hashable is an app and web-based platform that basically facilitates real-life introductions. Let’s say you met them at a conference and don’t have time to exchange business cards- it simply lets you do that through twitter and/or Facebook. It also helps you make virtual introductions through email, checking in at the same event (good call for SXSW) and creating your “inner circle”- your power users.

At first glance, it looks pretty good.  But like Quora, the user interface can be confusing. I’m not sure what the leaderboard and “hashcred” means, but hey, I’m gonna give this a try at SXSW and see what happens. I think we (and Hashable) will have some pretty quick feedback in the next few weeks.

But, what worries me about Hashable and Quora is that they’re simply piggybacking off of existing behaviors and technologies (think Twitter, Facebook Foursquare and Linkedin) and trying to make a a go of it.

For Quora users, what happens when Facebook Questions comes along in a few weeks- then what?

For Hashable, can’t LinkedIn just beef up it’s mobile app, add some Foursquare functionality and replace you?

And for lots of us in the social media space aren’t we  simply getting tired of the next “shiny object”?

What do you think? You going to use Hashable at SXSW? Do you love Quora? Are they both worth oodles of money?

“How to Eat People” is Andy Kessler’s new book about game changing rules for entrepreneurs and us marketing types. It’s a fascinating book on how technology is taking away jobs, and what you can and should do about it.

His Rule #7 “Be Soylent- Eat People” has a simple premise. We must eliminate worthless jobs. Have more “creators” and less “servers”.  Read on.

Creators: The people writing code,  plowing our land, publishing content, creating new drugs, creating new search engines, a better refrigerator… you get the picture…

Servers: Everyone else. He’s created some fun nicknames here, and they are remarkably accurate…

• Sloppers: the people who move things from one place to another, think factory workers, DMV employees, toll-booth takers
• Sponges- Those who passed a certain test to prove their mettle (or to limit supply). Doctors, Laywers, Real Estate Brokers, stock brokers, etc.
• SuperSloppers – Um, that’s us marketing types. At least some of us. The people or products who convince you that you should buy that Rolex, Prius, and yes, even organic food
• Slimers- yep- you guessed it. People who work in finance or Wall Street. They don’t create any real value, they just keep the financial engines churning
• Thieves- Think goverment and big companies. Cable operators, cell phone companies, regulatory inspectors and more.

So, what does this mean? Well, for one thing, it explains why more and more people and companies need to create, rather than to serve.  His argument? More and more of those “servers” are simply being replaced by technology.  There is a reason why Apple, Netflix and Google are flourishing, and the media and retailers are not. There’s an obvious reason why next year the Golden Gate bridge won’t have any toll-booth takers…. Technology.

So, the real take away for us as Marketers and Social Media types is that Kessler’s book verifies what we’ve been saying all along. Content creation is it. CC Chapman and Ann Handley just wrote a great book about it, if you haven’t already read it, put it on your list.

So, marketers, let’s stop serving and start creating…