Registered users can ask questions from several popular Instant Messaging clients such as Google Talk, Windows Live, AIM or Twitter, practically all email clients (no matter if they are online or desktop clients) and the Aardvark website. One major component is the friend network that user’s can utilize to have their questions answered. When posting a question Aardvark will analyze that question and try to find the best possible friends who can answer that question. Questions will also be directed to friends of friends, co-workers, people living in the same location and people who are topical experts.

Answers will be either send to an Instant Messenger of choice if the user who asked the question is online at that time or to the email account if the user is offline in the client. The time it takes to get a response depends largely on the question, the time the question is asked and the friends of the user. All questions that have been asked during tests (with only 1 offline friend present at that time) were answered by dedicated users of the service in less than five minutes.

The concept itself is pretty amazing and users can contribute by answering questions. The main benefits of Aardvark over similar services like Yahoo Answers are that the answers (seem to be) more professional, that questions can be asked from Instant Messengers, Email or the website, that the answers arrive in less than five minutes on average and that the community does not seem to be spammed by webmasters promoting their own services.

Aardvark offers a great alternative to Yahoo Answers, similar services and doing research on the Internet.

Update: Google has acquired the Aardvark service, technology and website in 2010. The Internet giant later on decided to discontinue Aardvark. The site and technology is no longer available.

Users who do not stop here and turn their back on the forum in frustration can actually access the answers quite easily without having to use third party services or changing their web browser’s configuration. What many users fail to realize that the answers are right in front of them, or more precisely right at the end of the scrollbar.

The Experts Exchange forum uses a very clever forum disguise to make visitors think that they can only access the answers if they signup as the banners and information directly below the question suggest. If they happen to scroll down further however they will realize that all the answers are located below that block.

There is one requirement though. Only visitors who are coming from search engines will be able to see the answers this way. There is however a quick and easy way of achieving this. Copying and pasting the title of the thread into a search engine form will do the trick. The posts at the Experts Exchange forum are usually well indexed and one of the first entries should be a direct link to that forum post.

A click on that link will open the Experts Exchange page with the question and its answers which are located below the middle block.

What might seem like a fun place at first, actually has very broad research potential. You found an old baseball card lying around, and it may be worth hundreds of bucks. Just snap a shot and ask if anyone knows. If you find something you like on the web, add the pic, and ask where you can buy it.

Since it is community based you have a much higher chance of a good answer, than asking your friends, or posting a question on a forum. I also like the fact that you can randomly go through photos, answering some you like, and joining the discussion of unanswered ones.

This is an online service that looks like fun to participate in, but there are some tools that could make it better. For example, it would be nice to be able to get RSS feeds of either all questions, or just separate categories.

There is a drawback to the service, which is mainly the fact that it’s new and that it’s community based. This means that there aren’t too many users, so don’t expect a flood of comments, but you still may get some useful tips. Notice that the answer to the question in the pic was posted on the same day as the question itself.

As the service grows there will be more and more people, but that also means more and more spam and more and more idiots ruining the fun. Weather the service will be able to fight this is questionable, we’ll have to wait and see.