My understanding of how Aardvard differentiates themselves from their competitors is that when you ask a question, Vark will dive into the profiles of your friends and their friends to find people that will most likely be able to answer your question within 5 minutes.  John Battelle’s spidey sense went off the charts for this company.  Mine is going off too…albeit for different reasons.

The first assumption that Vard is making is that the answers you get from your social graph are better than anything else available to you.  Two questions: why is it better and what if your social graph isn’t that big or it’s actually very big?  Example: Ashton Kutcher (with 2 million followers) and Joe Bloggs (with 126 followers) asks for recommendations for some really good mutter paneer in NYC.  Will either of them get a better answer than searching Google for “best mutter paneer nyc”?  (I’d recommend Haveli)

Basically your answers are limited to the extent of your social graph.  So the more popular you are, the better answers you’ll get.  Well, I’m screwed.

The second assumption is that their answers are so good that you’re willing to wait, on average, 5 minutes to get an answer.  5 minutes in internet time is like 5 billion years.  If I’m on the street with a bunch of friends, looking for a good Indian restaurant, here’s the conversation that I’m likely to have.

Me: Hey guys, I’m really jonesing for some peas and cheese in a savory curry.  Do you know a place?
Friend 1: Nope.
Friend 2: Nope but I’m on aardvark.com!  Let’s ask there.
Friend 3: Isn’t it Vark.com?
Me: I think it’s aardvark…isn’t it?
Friend 1: It’s aardvard like Haarvard.
Friend 2: Dude, you’re useless.  I just sent the question…just have to wait 5 minutes for an answer.
Friend 3: What?! 5 minutes?! Dude, 5 minutes is like 5 billion years in internet time!
Me: Yeah and don’t you only have like 50 followers on Twitter?
Friend 1: That’s you dumbass.
Friend 2: Better than asking qrisper.com.  What do you have like 50 users now?
Friend 3: Oooh burnnn!
Me: I haven’t launched yet!
Friend 1: I’ll try Hunch while we’re waiting.  I hear they’re good at helping us make decisions.
Friend 2: Yeah, only after answering questions like, “Are you menstruating right now?”
Me: Screw this. (types mutter paneer nyc into Google/Yelp/Urbanspoon/etc., gets an answer in 0.09 seconds).  Let’s go here.
(5 minutes later)
Friend 2: Hey, vardvark’s saying we should go to where we are now.
Me: (muttering) I haven’t launched yet is all…

While I can see people using Vark to complement a web search for answers, it won’t replace it.  The criticisms for sites like Yahoo Answers are valid, but intentionally limiting your answer pool to your personal social network isn’t the answer either.  Targeted social networks, such as Stack Overflow and Chowhound are doing a better job of providing answers.  But they aren’t the be all, end all.  That would be qrisper.