iPhone Review: Aardvark – A great idea that falls a little flat
1 Comment// Posted in iPhone, Reviews, Video Games by Sean on 09.26.09.
Aardvark is an app I saw in the most popular list and thought I’d check it out because it sounded like a great idea. It is an App that promises what services similar to ChaCha offer, where you ask a question and then others answer your question. The cool thing about Aardvark is that when you ask a question, it is first sent to your friends (through Facebook, if you have any that use it) who you “trust,” then it is sent to people who “know about the subject.” This is determined when you first sign up, as you pick categories that are more knowledgeable about such as Movies or Politics. The even cooler thing is that when someone answers your question it will give you sent a push notification so you can get answer immediately without having to refresh anything or be in the app.
Now what doesn’t work is that you probably aren’t going to have any Facebook friends using Aardvark, so it’s really not any use unless Aardvark gets a much larger user count. And on that note, your questions really won’t get answered as well as you would want. I never seemed to get an answer to any questions that weren’t common knowledge. But when asked who played Superman in the original movie, I immediately got results. But even if I did get answers to those non-common knowledge questions, they probably wouldn’t be researched at all. There is no moderation as far as I know.
Because of this, I really think ChaCha has a huge advantage over this app/network. ChaCha is moderated to make sure the answers are good and researched, and the answerers are paid (not much, but still paid) which gives incentive for the questions to always be answered. The only limitation is that there is no iPhone app for ChaCha (and looks like there never will be), so you are stuck using text messages, which could be bad for someone without a messaging plan (like me).
Conclusion
Aardvark is a simple, yet spot on application in terms of design, but doesn’t have a large enough user base, incentive, or moderation to keep the questions answered in a timely manner or correctly. ChaCha is without a doubt the overall better service to use if you have a messaging plan (text 242242 or chacha.com), but Aardvark is a decent app if you can’t spare those precious text messages.
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Sean, thanks for reviewing Aardvark and I apologize that you didn’t have the best first experience! ChaCha is great for quick, accurate answers to factual questions; Aardvark is better for subjective questions like “Any ideas for a unique but casual second date near Towson University?”.
While Aardvark doesn’t moderate answers (except to filter out inappropriate ones), it does control who your question is sent to, which is where your network comes into play. We’ve found that a friend or a friend-of-a-friend is much more reliable and trustworthy that a random stranger – and can usually provide much better advice for you personally. This social connection also helps provide incentive – currently around 90% of questions on Aardvark are answered.
Obviously, there are still many ways that Aardvark could improve. I’d love to hear any other feedback that you or your readers have – alison@aardvarkteam.com
- Alison @ Aardvark
http://twitter.com/AlisonatVark