I’ve been playing with a new service the last few days called Aardvark. The service combines the idea of social networking with search to create a social search application. This is something I’ve been wishing for for quite some time. There’s a big difference in my opinion in doing a search and considering the results of a million 10yr olds thinking something is cool in Google‘s algorithms and getting qualified, expert results instead.
What happens is that you register for the site and as part of completing your profile you provide areas in which you consider yourself having some expertise. Someone then asks a question via IM with Aardvark (you can integrate it with a variety of IM clients) and if the question has keywords related to your areas of expertise you’re sent an IM with the question. There’s also opportunities to answer "extra" questions that may not fit your exact expertise.
Here’s a sample conversation of mine with Aardvark via IM:
aardvark:
Hi Jason, I have an Extra Question that’s not related to your profile…
I have a question about *SEO* – can you help?
(Type ‘sure’, ‘pass’, or ‘busy’.)Sorry I missed you.
Type ‘sure’ to see if you can answer the question, or type ‘help’ to learn more about Aardvark.
(Tip: try asking about a *gift recommendation* for the holidays, or get a *travel tip*…)
There’s a variety of other menu’s you can access via IM to find out what other people are searching for or what talents certain people have that are currently online and available for questions.
I love this service, but I can see how it could get interrupting to you during your day with messages automatically coming into your IM client regularly. I’m going to keep playing with it though because I really like the idea of it. It reminds me of how I enjoy using twitter to bounce questions off of my followers and see the results I get.
Give Aardvark a try yourself and sign-up, maybe you’ve got an answer out there for someone, I’m fairly certain you’ve probably got a question you’d like answered in the meantime.