Four entrepreneurs -- Max Ventilla, Damon Horowitz, Nathan Stoll, and Rob Spiro -- launched Aardvark in 2007. The quartet first conceived it as a social search engine -- a way to find people (rather than web pages) with specific information .

The company rolled out the Aardvark concept last summer via e-mail, instant message, Twitter and the iPhone before launching it more broadly in October at vark.com. It didn't take long for Google to take notice and buy out the fledgling service that raised venture capital from the likes of August Capital and Baseline Ventures.

Trusted, Real-Time Answers

"Aardvark is a kind of real-time social search tool or 'answer engine.' It was never really a threat to Google, but the company was doing something very different than Google," said Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence. "An earlier almost identical service, Mosio, shifted its model toward enterprises for revenue reasons, it would appear. There have been a number of efforts toward social search, but Aardvark is really the closest to realizing that elusive goal."

Consumers looking for trusted information such as product recommendations, travel suggestions, local tips, or career advice get results from friends, or friends of friends, by sending Aardvark a question in plain English. For example, you could ask Aardvark, "Where should I go for lunch in Midtown Manhattan?"

Aardvark then figures out who might be able to answer your question and asks on your behalf. Aardvark said most questions are answered within five minutes, and the vast majority are answered within 10 minutes. The speed with which questions are answered depends on the subject of the question and the number of people in your network who are online. Consumers can synch their Aardvark account with Facebook to broaden their network more quickly.

Google's Second Answers Attempt

The Aardvark acquisition comes just days after Google rolled out Google Buzz, a way for Gmail users to start conversations about things they find interesting. Noteworthy is the fact that Google attempted something similar to Aardvark in the past. It was called Google Answers, and it was a service that let consumers engage people to conduct a search or research for them -- at a price.

Sterling recalled that Google shut down Google Answers when Yahoo Answers, a free service, became popular. However, he noted, Google contends the two events are unrelated. In any case, Google is taking a second look at the concept, this time with the free Aardvark service.

"This acquisition is part of the larger push for Google into social media," Sterling said. "I'm sure Google has some ideas on how it wants to deploy Aardvark, but also probably wanted to keep it out of the hands of, say, Facebook or someone else -- Microsoft -- that might be able to scale it and shave off some of Google's query volume at the margins -- especially in mobile ."

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