ardvark thinks about search in a different way. The online service thinks that sometimes it is more useful to ask a question to an actual person, one from within your social network, rather than typing the query in a search engine.  

Aardvark wants to bring that same approach to the iPhone and iPod touch. Aardvark Mobile by developer Vark.com is a mobile version of its social question-and-answer service.

Aardvark Mobile and Aardvark Web site does the same thing. They deal with subjective searches where search engines by design struggle.

What does Aardvark do?

Aardvark search into your social networks and contacts on Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, and elsewhere to find out answers to questions that might otherwise not produce a good result in search engine researching. Aardvark is the best in finding answers to questions like “Where’s a good place to eat in this neighborhood?” or “Where should I stay when I visit London?”

If you are using Aardvark’s Web service, you can send a message through your IM client to Aardvark. It then checks out the people in your network (and in their extended network) who might be able to answer the question and asks them on your behalf. According to the site, about 90 percent of the questions asked via Aardvark get answered and most of the questions are answered in less than five minutes.

The working system of the iPhone version of Aardvark is almost the same. Here, you do not use an IM; rather, you will type a message directly into the app, tag it with the appropriate categories, and send it off to Aardvark. The service pings people for an answer. When the answer comes back, it sends you a push notification.

Aardvark Mobile also uses the iPhone’s built-in location features to automatically detect your location-a feature that can help when you’re asking about local hotspots. The Aardvark Mobile app is free. Aardvark Mobile requires the iPhone OS 3.0.

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