ARN

Google buys social search company Aardvark

The company searches a user's social-networking contacts to get answers to questions the user asks

Google is buying Aardvark, a company that fields questions and routes them for answers to the most qualified respondents within the user's social-networking circle.

"We have signed a definitive agreement to acquire Aardvark, but we don't have any additional details to share right now," Google spokesman Andrew Pederson said via e-mail, after technology news blog Techcrunch broke the news on Thursday.

Once people sign up for Aardvark, they create a list of contacts, either manually or by importing their contacts from Facebook, Gmail, and other Webmail and IM services, and populate it with those who have already signed up for Aardvark. Users can expand the list to also include friends of friends, as well as members of Facebook groups that they belong to.

Once the list is set up, Aardvark will analyze the contacts' areas of interest and expertise based on information they have provided to Aardvark, preferences stated on their profiles, interactions with their friends and other clues.

Users can send questions to Aardvark through its Web site or through e-mail, Twitter, iPhone devices and IM.

"Aardvark was conceived as the first Social Search engine: a way to find people, not web pages, that have specific information," reads a description of the company on its Web site.

Aardvark was founded in late 2007. Two of its co-founders worked at Google.

Nominations for the 2012 ARN IT Industry Awards open on Tuesday, June 12.

More about: Andrew, Facebook, Google
References show all

Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Users posting comments agree to the ARN comments policy.
Login or register to link comments to your user profile, or you may also post a comment without being logged in.
Related Coverage
Related Whitepapers
Latest Stories
Community Comments
Tags: Aardvark, Google, mergers and acquisitions
ARN Directory | Distributors relevant to this article
Aquion , Avnet Technology Solutions
rhs_login_lockGet exclusive access to ARN's news, research and invitation only events.
ARN Distributor Directory
Find distributors by name | vendor | location
Channel Deals
/deals/aca-pacific/439_qlogic-reseller-promotion-bonuses-on-hba-and-s
ACA Pacific

QLogic Reseller Promotion. Bonuses on HBA and Switch Purchases. Ends June 30th, 2012

More details »
ARN Vendor Directory
Find vendors by name | category

iAsset is a channel management ecosystem that automates all major aspects of the entire sales,marketing and service process, including data tracking, integrated learning, knowledge management and product lifecycle management.