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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.

(more…)

The New York Times and Washington Post probably do the best interactive graphics and stories. If more newspapers did original “interactivities,” I think their online readership could be sustained, or even grow.

Here’s a snapshot of Twitter Chat During the Super Bowl from the New York Times today. Click on the image to see the interactive map, and navigate the different categories in the left menu as you play the Game Timeline up top:

The Washington Post has done mash-ups of tweets, videos and photos on Google Maps, which is really, really easy to do. Here is the official Washington Post announcement that describes what they did for the 2008 Presidential Elections.

Perhaps there’s an advertisement opportunity here for papers to highlight particular buzz in unique colors for products (or brands) that are willing to pay the papers. (Of course, the anti-conglomerate, free-press side of me hopes this won’t ever happen. But the business degree side of me tells me it’s probably already in the works.)

On the flip side, another opportunity here is for market researchers to take a tweet-grid such as these and geo-locate where their products/brands are most or least popular. We’re definitely at the dawn of a new era of reporting and micro-marketing…