Aardvark is a very nifty service that allows you to ask other users any question. These questions can be about local restaurants or JavaScript – Aardvark will simply find the best person to answer your question and give you an answer within minutes. Aardvark launched at SXSW last year and today, the company also finally launched its iPhone app. The app gives users access to all of Aardvark’s features, including the ability to ask and answer questions and make changes to your user profile. In addition, the app also taps into the iPhone’s own services and allows users to automatically geotag questions and receive push notifications when a question was answered by another user.
Aardvark is surprisingly useful. Answers, especially about local and travel topics, usually arrive within minutes and usually you will get more than just one answer. Aardvark usually distributes questions by email and IM, but the iPhone app may just turn out to be the best interface for this. After all, you always have your phone with you. Another nice feature is that the app also supports Facebook Connect, so you can also query your Facebook friends easily.
Answering questions on the iPhone is also quite easy. Just head to the ‘Answer’ tab and a new question will pop up. You can customize what kind of questions you would like to answer in your Aardvark profile. If you don’t know the answer and want to switch to another question, just shake the phone and Aardvark will look for another one (and make some aardvark noises in the background as well).
To route questions, Aardvark does some pretty sophisticated analysis in the backend to make sure your questions get to those people who can actually answer them. For users, however, all that matters is that questions actually get answered, and this is where Aardvark does a really good job.
