How does any social platform make money these days? Brands.

Social platforms need brands to pay to promote their wares.

Quora isn’t a traditional social platform by any means. The site depends on questions and authoritative answers. Fast Company admits the site may appear to be “a glorified version of Yahoo Answers.”

Quora’s mission is certainly lofty, as CEO Adam D’Angelo explains in a blog post:

“We hope to become an internet-scale Library of Alexandria, a place where hundreds of millions of people go to learn about anything and share everything they know.”

But with a new blogging platform, the site is hoping to expand its mission through new formats, and as Fast Company suggests, possibly woo brands.

D’Angelo, 28, has a stint as Facebook’s chief technology officer in his rearview. In 2010, he and Quora co-founder Charles Cheever were named two of Fortune’s smartest people in tech. Clearly, pedigree and hype aren’t an issue.

The challenge is whether brands will flock to the site. That tends to start and end with scale. If a brand’s audience is using a platform, brands will naturally migrate there (that is, if they’re smart).

But a brand won’t play in a space in hopes that their fans will follow.

Fashion brands tend to be the most forward-thinking in terms of early adoption of new platforms, so if you start to see the J. Crews and Burberrys of the world migrating there, you may want to give it some deeper consideration.

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