#Aardvark Opens to the Public

Check Vark out on Sunday’s New York Times… Congrats, Vark Team!

A few months ago, I wrote a post introducing Aardvark (aka Vark) – a service where your question is broadcast to those mostly likely able to answer it within the Aardvark community.

Vark has been really useful because I can broadcast a specific question without clogging Facebook or Twitter feeds, and count on someone with at least a basic knowledge of my query, to point me in the right direction.

Today, I got an email from CEO Max Ventilla:

Since you’ve blogged about Aardvark in the past, I thought you might be interested in some exciting developments…

…Anyone can join now at http://vark.com using their Facebook account. (We’re integrating with other social networks very soon.)

[Fan them on Facebook too.]

This is a great move on the part of Aardvark.  They’ve really come a long way in the last few months, partly thanks to the growth in number of users.  Once it reaches critical mass, it’s value will increase exponentially.

Five more suggestions that I think will make their tool and brand name powerful are:

1. Allow my Vark Q&As to be published to social network feeds, particularly on Facebook, Twitter and FriendFeed.
2. Facebook app that can also be a tab within a profile where friends can see your Vark profile, and question/answers.
3. iPhone app (this is already in the works)
4. And if an exact or very similar query has already been answered, to automatically “reuse” that answer for faster responses (with a like/dislike option).
5. Vanity URL to profile.  (I’d like “vark.com/sherry”.)

I enjoy Vark because it’s (almost) anonymous social networking: I’m interacting with strangers to help them out, and vice versa.  If you use the instant messaging (IM) tool for Vark, the unexpected randomness of questions breaks up my work day.  Vark “interrupts” subtly by asking “Are you there?” and you can choose whether to engage or not by typing “sure”, “busy”, or “pass”.

Try it out… you’ll be surprised at how much you actually know.

Ask Aardvark

I’m passing a favor forward.  I have four invites for the private beta of Aardvark, which is a new social answer-sourcing tool.  Leave me a comment or send me a message with your email if you want one.

So what is Aardvark?

It’s an IM client from which you can ask a specific question like “What’s a good easy bike path in Irvine, CA for a beginning cyclist?”  And it’ll send the query to others who claim to be experts in cycling nearby.

Unlike Twitter, your question is broadcast to those mostly likely able to answer your question.  Likewise, you’ll get sent questions that you’re most likely knowledgeable about based upon your Aardvark profile.  You can control how many questions are sent to you and how often, so you only participate as much or as little as you want to.

Since it’s still in private beta, there isn’t a critical mass yet to get quick enough responses.  (It took about 20 minutes to get an answer to the question above.)  And I have a wishlist of features including:

• The ability to add users other than those that I invite to be “friends”
• An option to receive any questions (and answers) regardless of topics from those I mark as friends
• Receive instant answers from a repository of previous answers to similar questions.

According to Read Write Web (@rww), Aardvark was developed by The Mechanical Zoo, a San Francisco-based company that raised $5.25 million from August Capital and Baseline Ventures last October.