Aardvark, the secretive, invite-only social search service founded by ex-Googlers that we first mentioned late last year, is preparing to become a little less secretive (the company has changed its name from Mechanical Zoo to Aardvark). They’ll start giving users virtually unlimited invitations starting next week – until now invites have been limited to one or so per month per user.
Aardvark is a way to get quick, quality answers to questions from your extended social network. You can ask questions via an instant message buddy or email. The questions are then farmed out to your contacts (and their contacts) based on what they say they have knowledge of. If you ask taste related questions about music, books, movies, restaurants, etc., they’ll ask people who tend to show similar tastes as you in their profile.
I’ve used it for feedback on restaurant recommendations in Paris, vacation rentals in Sonoma and wine bars in San Francisco.
The service works best when you already have friends using it, which is why the company is focused on user invitations rather than just opening it up to the public. There is a wait list on the home page, and the company says they’ll start letting those people in, too. But they’ve found during beta testing that users who have a group of friends to ask and answer questions to have a better experience and are more likely to stick. One way for users to grab a quick friend list is to sign in via Facebook Connect, which imports all your Facebook friends who are already using it, and prompts you to invite those that aren’t.
The company is also experimenting with a very promising sub-product that groups people under topics of interest. We could theoretically create a TechCrunch group, for example, that lets users ask questions about startups, venture funding and entrepreneurship to each other. All those questions and answers are populating a knowledge base in the background (think Yahoo Answers but with real content), and eventually Aardvark may leverage all that data. More on this in the coming months, says Aardvark co-founder Max Ventilla.
I’ve been a beta user for 5 months and I really, really like it. I find myself answering more than asking..
btw, Max Ventilla is scary smart, I have no doubt they are going to kill it..
I more tend to associate this with Yahoo answers (with a network touch). If you want to know what is social search, check out http://sproose.com
yahoo answers is absolutely full of junk content. i’ve rarely found useful stuff there. great seo though.
Well, with volumes comes junk too. I would call Google junk too if I were looking for the Indonesian islands named ‘Java’ and all programming info turned up..
I was referring to the kind of questions that would tend to be ’searched’ or ‘asked’ in such a website..It will be more about product review or advice rather than strict search queries that we have learned to type on Google.
totally agree about yahoo answer it is now like yahoo chat rooms full of spam and waste of time
stackoverflow>
Yahoo or Wiki seem to be useful most of the time for us. That is why if you ask a question to AAfter search we give you direct links to them.
Not most of the time. out of 10 i am able to find 7 answers. not so bad…:)
Huge privacy implications. What if I wanna know what’s a good brothel in nevada, but don’t want to send that question to my boss?
hey rob, we’re working on ways for askers to control who gets to see their question.
the service definitely has legs. Something about it bugs me, the way questions fly into IM and email without warning (meaning I didn’t prepare myself to go answer questions relevant to me), but since it’s friends I’m willing to answer. and if i don’t jump on it, the service simply moves on to another friend. When i ask questions, good stuff comes back immediately. I expect this will will pick up a few Crunchies nominations next January. Best startup 2009? perhaps.
A company called Qunu (http://qunu.com/) tried a very similar idea in 2006 and it failed to take off. But that was pre-twitter. The challenge is how to reward experts – otherwise the IM interruptions are just jarring and annoying.
Yes I agree. I think this would works well with people you know, but if it is expanded to a broader universe of users, the problem will be creating a proper incentive system to encourage people not only to answer but also to give quality answers.
If someone develops a reputation for answerng a lot and giving great answers, then that questions will fly into that persons’ IM and completely overwhelm the person.
If they can crack this problem, I agree, this will be a killer service.
Anjali Sen
This is “sarcasm” >>We are so impressed by your wisdom and your unusual ability to explain and clarify complex issues to us, mere engineers….
Some visitors to TC are absolutely correct: you are a shameless, persistent, stupid, spammer. Please stop being an annoying pain. Go away.
who the fu@@ care weather you agree or not,
just thrash this shit, paula
@anjali sen is retard BABE,
Stop spamming dude.
Super, Super Product. I agree its the best product that I have seen this year. Infact its the best product that I have seen since Google. Honestly.
I forgot to mention, I also have a soft spot for the Aardvark name. I’m a University of California, Irvine Alumni.. I’m an Anteater!!
Go Eaters!
I’ve been trying it too. I find the IM interface intrusive, but the company will soon let you ask Qs via Twitter and Facebook as well, which should make it more asynchronous.
Congrats to Rob Spiro and the team. This is going to be BIG. How can I get into the beta?
if you’re reallly really nice, send me an @davidadewumi via twitter, and I’ll *try* to get you in. I’ve got oodles of invites
deadpool within a year.
you need to find a different blog to hang out at.
This is so NOT acceptable … it’s we (users) because of whom you have been successful with your website .. and now you are being rude to us.
Entirely possible that this is not the first interaction Michael has come across from the individual he responded to?
Either way, if you are going to say it is junk or doomed to fail, or deadpool, how about a why? That is really the point of commenting to discuss, not just for drive bys.
How can you be so rude, Mike? What’s so wrong in writing personal opinions here? After all this is a blog and it took off not just by your fine writings, also by the great comments written here. You SHOULD apologize to this guy – right here.
A why it will be in deadpool – Using your social network to find answers I can already do via phone , email or talking. I go to sites like expertsexchange, yahoo answers because I dont already know anybody with the answers.
Sites like experts exchange will always have a wider knowledge base than my own social network and same can be said for everybody else.
Just because you may have 500 people on your facebook profile does not mean your network is that big ( it just means youve added alot ofpeople you havent spoken to since you left playgroup).
I no longer wonder why micheal almost got beaten up at Davos. Now the answer is clear for all his readers.
Here is some useful information that I have found from research. In the last 120 days social networking sites have seen steady decrease in traffic where polls have shown that its mainly because of harassing advertisements. The numbers are staggering where there is an average traffic decrease over 30% between all social networking sites.
Now I need some information. I have spent four years and over a million dollars of personal funds and in sweat equity developing a site that I plan to launch this year. I am raising venture capital to launch and have raised another $1.5m out of the $6m goal I plan to reach prior to launching.
The site is a massive “Interactive Entertainmant & Information Search Portal With Social & Commercial Networking Integration”. The process to raise capital in Tampa has been rough and long and I am looking for any resources that can help speed the process up.
My prototype has been strong enough to recieve endorsements from Mike Alstott AKA A-Train (retired Bucs FB), George Wendt (my 3rd cousin, Norm from Cheers)and several political figures, which have all contributed to current Angel Equity.
I am redoing my corporate site as we speak and that will be posted by the end of March, which is located at eeihq.com.
The new search portal domain is YourNight.com
Any information and/or guidance is appreciated.
Regards,
RJ Garbowicz
President/CEO
Extreme Enterprises, Inc.
looks like ex-Googlers easily get tons of VC funding to develop something that is doable in 1month by a single engineer … and they generally take more than a year to build …
since aardvark is generally get 6ft tall .. so is this site .. 6months max to deadpool. Anybody wanna bet… doubt it???
You are right about them getting Venture Capital(VC) funding easily. I mean it’s to be expected. They are in the industry, they should know all the right people. They’d be a waste of space if they didn’t
Why deadpool? I really don’t see them failing as easily as you predict that’s even if they’ll fail at all.
By the way, I’m in the SE and I’m looking for VC funding. We calculate that in less than a year we’ll be profitable and we are seeking for less than $1 million
Good question.. “Why Aardvark will be deadpool?”
Answer:
First, if you do have an account on Aardvark, try using their service and ask your network the same question. I am sure someone will give you a better answer than me.
My answer:
* Where’s the money?
* If I have a question, I was to know the answer right away. So I would go to competitors like Yahoo, Google search and will get instant answers or search results.
* I don’t want to get flooded with email/chat messages while I am at work… so I won’t login during work hours, ie, 8hrs at least. And after going home, Why would I answer or even go through so many questions from my network.
Yes but do Yahoo or Google provide the opportunity for your network of contact to weigh in on the answer?
This is based on whom you deem worthy providing you feedback on your questions, not on a manipulated search engine giving you the results that fit its alogrithm.
Go type “best shoe store in Union Square” into Google, would you rather those results alone, or those results next to what your friends or respected contacts have to say?
yeah then you get site like twitter that keep crashing when develop in a months time
Key point of crashing is traffic and if you know how to take care of that already .. then implementing that does not take more than a month (240hrs). And if developers don’t know that, then website would crash even after developing for an entire year …
I don’t think that’s a fair statement. There are some interesting features, including some thought put into the NLP side of the product, that most engineers would not have a clue about how to do well and efficiently.
I’ve been using the service for a few months now. Mike, a few of your friends have been referred to me, which is cool. I will tell you, this is the real deal. They get the ui, experience, and intricacies down perfectly. Kind of like the way Apple gets all the ins and out perfectly and it just works. The quality of answers is astounding, and ive been connected with some pretty amazing people as well. There’s only two other companies that have excited me like this in their early days- Facebook (was a member in 04) and Twitter (joined in earlyish 06 when it started).
-jlb
meh. not everything needs to be social just because social networks are popular. Asking a question via aardvark about recommending a 3rd-party mac repair shop gets an answer like go to apple store
lol
Interesting concept. Similar to Cisco’s Expert Advisor product but only for consumers.
I’ve gotta say this really reminds me of Friendfeed, in the fact that you can set up rooms on particular topics and ask away via im…and get replies pretty damn fast too.
But i haven’t tried it yet so can’t really compare the quality of answers yet
zee, i think it’s more than just the quality of answers — it’s the speed and widespread domain knowledge available to the user base, via friends and friends of friends.
i’ve only got maybe 50 followers on FriendFeed — so if I ask a question, it’s hit or miss — you can’t really have an expectation of getting answers — and getting them fast.
Perhaps if the questions were distributed in a more passive fashion (old school irc, newsfeed, etc) it would seem less intrusive.
Perhaps, but I think a great part of the appeal is the instant gratification of getting an answer. I think this concept has great potential, but there are a lot of challenges that the team will need to figure out … not necessarily technological challenges, but rather having to do with human behaviour.
for a second I thought that this comment was posted by Arrington…. but noooooooo, the author is the arrogant I-know-it-all spammer idiot “babes.” What a retarded douche bag.
@natalie,
Shut up already…
you’re right, there are lots of challenges vis-a-vis human behavior, but thankfully the team is super smart and listen to their users, so have a good (if not better) shot as any at overcoming these challenges.
Perhaps, but I think a great part of the appeal is the instant gratification of getting me laid. I think this concept has great potential, but there are a lot of challenges as i have a big one that the team will need to figure out … not necessarily technological challenges, but rathermoronical having to do with my lack of IQ
@above,
Stop spamming dude…
Social search is very interesting, but seems like there are a lot of companies trying to do the same thing, like Cha Cha… and they need to get a better designer for their homepage. It looks like it was created in Google pages with a bunch of gadgets.
Unrelated: I like the sample question “What’s the best place to buy running shoes in San Francisco?”
I was just wondering that myself the other day. Spring training time!
becky — i just got to SF and asked a similar question about running in SF — sign up and ask aardvark! if you want an invite msg me or @davidadewumi via twitter.
I think that name is rather unfortunate. Does it have any special meaning I’m missing? Bye!
Aardvark’s have the ability to climb to the top of contact lists in IM and email…
I’ve been using Aardvark for quite some time and it’s quickly become one of my favorite services on the web. I find it’s incredibly helpful for the questions that are the hardest to research on the web or where objectivity is hard to come by. I also (surprisingly) have found that answering questions is fun and addictive. I think the positivity and gratitude in the community is rare and refreshing. Look forward to seeing the product and community grow and evolve.
Not so secretive:
http://vark.com/signup
Wow, just like a project I helped get the greenlight at Microsoft before the blood got drained out of it by the “need” to make it enterprisey.
I home Aardvark does well, if only out of a deep sense of spite.
What happened to calling people up? I already know who would best answer my questions. A bit like phone a friend…
Cam said…
What happened to calling people up?
Amen to that Cam. People are wasting time in using services which take away their productive time. If there is a breaking news in real-time, I would tune in to CNN, Fox News, BBC for more depth coverage. I wouldn’t waste my time in hanging out on Twitter to be updated on breaking news such as a plane that landed on Hudson river.
Dang, I was about to start developing something like this based on Twitter. Well, it proves it was a good idea. And if it’s some people from Google, even better, as when Google get GUI right, they get it right. Anyway, Vark have just saved me time, energy, money and risk. We had yet to write a line of code or even complete a feature specification.
But to be honest, there is that feeling of, “I would like to have been first.”
I’ve been using Aardvark for a while now, and I really like it. I find it really gratifying when I’m able to answer someone’s question well and quickly, and then they get back to me with a “Wow!” of some kind. I imagine this is similar to what the power sellers on eBay feel when they get positive feedback.
Great idea. Thanks Mike. Wrong implementation.
In a month, we’ll have the right answer.
Seems like an awesome idea. I look forward to trying it out.
Nice, but would be even better if there it is a Facebook application.
Nice post! Check out my site too at http://macmaniapodcast.com.
Great name i think. Its the first word on many vocab books.
I have used Aardvark since last summer and found it quite annoying. I received lots of questions that were totally unrelated to my area of expertise, interests, or background. It was too spammy for me and I discontinued using the service recently.
As for answers to my questions, it worked well for local (Bay Area) restaurant recommendations but otherwise most answers were basically either not returned or not relevant. It also appears that some questions were answered by Aardvark employees, likely based on simple google searches. I am not sure if this is still the case, though.
From a business perspective, I am not sure how these guys are ever going to make any significant revenues. Maybe there are some OEM/licensing opportunities, but otherwise it will be extremely difficult to monetize this. Good timing on their first round, though. They raised 6 million from August Capital last fall just before the venture funding environment collapsed. Once they burn through their remaining cash, this one will hit probably hit the deadpool.
no mike, i disagree with you. yahoo answers is not full of spam…
the idea of aardvark is interesting but flawed in a major way (i won’t reveal how, let them figure it out)
A lot of new stuff keeps showing up .. How can one join this one?
Praized Media created a distributed version of “questions” last year (http://praized.com/questions) where you ask questions via Twitter and Facebook and get answers on your own customizable web page.
Used to be a typeface, from what I remember from my days as a photoshop artist…
Interested it this , who can give me a invitation?
click on the ilnk on my name — have an invite for you. also @reply me on twitter
Yes, I’d like an invite as well.
see above advice!
I used Aardvark to find some skateparks around Massachusetts. Aardvark connected me with a rollerblader in Waltham, MA that helped me tremendously. Aardvark is a really innovative program that pushes the boundaries of social networking by searching for individuals who may be friends of friends of friends of friends, etc.. who share your interests that you would never have known about.