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July 31, 2009

Aardvark – Get Quick Answers To Any Question

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Aardvark describes itself as a social search engine. It taps into a network of users to provide you with answers to specific questions. Getting started is easy. Aardvark integrates with Facebook, so it’s painless to connect the two accounts and add anyone in your social circle who is also using Aardvark. Asking your first question is as simple as typing it in a box and waiting for the answer. During our testing, the response process seemed to take quite a while to come in. However, straightforward questions about restaurants or shows in a particular geographic area will likely receive much faster answers. To get the best from Aardvark, integrate it with your IM accounts, and use Twitter and email to ask and receive answers to questions.

Not only can you ask questions, but you can also answer them. How many you answer depends on the settings in your profile but in most cases it will be as much as a few a day to only one per week. To filter the questions you receive, specify interest areas in your profile – some of these are imported automatically if you sign up using Facebook Connect. Overall, Aardvark is a useful service by garnering the wisdom of crowds to everyone’s benefit.

Practical Uses:

  • Find the best places to eat in San Francisco while visiting for the weekend
  • Research your class science project
  • Get advice on a personal problem
  • Discover artists and entertainers similar to those you already enjoy

Insider Tips:

  • Make it even simpler to get help by sending your question to the email address provided
  • Fill out interests in your profile to filter the types of questions you are asked to answer
  • Set answering preferences to avoid being bombarded by question emails
  • Link Aardvark to your IM and Twitter accounts to increase the methods in which you can ask and answer questions

What we liked:

  • Getting set up was easy using Facebook Connect
  • Questions and responses can be managed in your email inbox
  • Aardvark automatically saves much of the information you enter
  • It’s simple to create a network using your existing social media accounts as a starting point

What we didn’t like:

  • Aardvark promised an answer to our question within five minutes, but it didn’t deliver on time

Alternatives:

Company Info:

  • Launched: July 2007
  • Privately Held
  • Headquarters: San Francisco, CA
  • Founded by: Max Ventilla, Damon Horowitz, Nathan Stoll, and Rob Spiro
  • Web site: http://www.vark.com

Costs:

  • Free

Comments

  1. Sharon, thanks for reviewing Aardvark, and I’m happy to see that you liked it overall. We’ve found that most questions are answered in under 5 minutes, but our service depends on real people, so we can’t make any guarantees. 🙂 I’d love to hear any more feedback that you or your readers have.

    – Alison @ Aardvark
    alison@aardvarkteam.com

  2. ok i love you

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