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.