Need an Answer? Ask Aardvark

Social search startup Aardvark is developing a tool that lets users pose questions by instant message or e-mail to people they know

By Aaron Ricadela

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The last time you looked for something on the Web, chances are, you typed a request into a Google search bar to find it. If people like Max Ventilla have their way, you'll soon be using other tools to unearth information online.

Ventilla is a co-founder of Aardvark, a startup that's hard at work on software that helps people find what they want online by asking others who know the subject matter best—and who are likely to weigh in with a helpful response. The 16-person San Francisco startup is testing a tool that lets users pose questions by instant message or e-mail to people they know.

Aardvark is among a crop of businesses specializing in social search, a technology at the crossroads of two of the Internet's hottest trends—social media and Web search. "If someone's looking for a recommendation on 'great music' or a 'hotel room in London', not even 20% of people are going to be satisfied with a search result" from traditional engines, says Ventilla, the 29-year-old ex-Google employee who is also CEO of Aardvark. Ventilla was chosen by BusinessWeek.com as one of the most promising young entrepreneurs in tech this year.

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Here's how it works. Add Aardvark to a PC or smartphone buddy list, and then send it questions about restaurant, travel, and product recommendations. Aardvark sorts questions into categories, then combs through data culled from other users' Facebook profiles in search of the half-dozen people who might know the topic best. Answers come back within a few minutes. A private test version of Aardvark currently has more than 10,000 users.

There are other tools that fill a similar role, such as Twitter, which lets you send an information request to those who follow your short messages, or tweets. But unlike with Twitter, Aardvark's users don't broadcast their questions to hundreds or thousands of followers; the software breaks down questions and sends them to a small subsection of a user's circle of acquaintances. Subscribers can also specify times when they don't want to be bothered. "This is not a broadcast channel," Ventilla says.

Investors have clamored to buy stakes in Aardvark since the focused conversations that take place on the service provide a medium for companies to reach consumers when they're ready to buy. The startup has collected referral fees from sites including Amazon.com (AMZN) and online shoe store Zappos.com that those companies pay when Aardvark users embed a link to their sites in the answer to question. "Advertisers would pay a lot" to appear next to relevant questions, says David Hornik, a general partner at August Capital, leader of a group that invested $5.5 million in Aardvark in October.

Augmenting Traditional Search

Venture capitalists' interest in Aardvark demonstrates some investors' willingness to fund promising ideas and savvy entrepreneurs despite the drought in venture investing.

To live up to the high expectations, Aardvark needs to avoid being eclipsed by Facebook, Twitter, or Google itself, all of which are interested in augmenting traditional Internet searches with information supplied by users in nearly real time. "The reality is, anytime we fund something we think is interesting, there's someone else out there who thinks it's interesting," Hornik says. "If Aardvark is successful, there are companies that will try to emulate it, or acquire it, or crush it."

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