There was quite some media coverage on ‘Aardvark‘ last few days.
Aardvark (previously known as ‘Mechanical Zoo’) is a social search service developed by some ex-Googlers. Concept is simple though ingenious. Essentially, when a user sends a question to Aardvark (via email or instant message), the service analyzes the question and categorizes it, then distributes the question to those who have self-appointed domain knowledge in that category, who can then respond while retaining some level of anonymity.
Interesting aspect is that Aardvark doesn’t use search engine like algoritms to match a question with a topic somewhere stored on the internet. It uses its algoritms to match a question with PERSONS who can (potentially) answer the question.
For ‘local’ questions, it is obviously important ‘local’ potential answer-ers are also subscribed to Aardvark. So far you can only join by invitation, so mainly US residents will be registered. I’ve applied for being invited though … so come on, some Aardvark-er out there must be looking for answers in the domain of Belgian beer, chocolates, medieval cultural cities Leuven/Brussels/Gent/Eksel/Bruges/Antwerp/…
Tags: web2.0