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Why does Aardvark think I know how to learn to be a stripper?

Ross Dawson, October 23, 2009 6:13 PM US PT

After a number of requests from friends I signed up for Aardvark recently. If you haven't t come across it, it's a social network for search, where your questions are given to whoever in your extended network is most likely to be able to answer them, as illustrated below.

It's an interesting idea which has got a lot of buzz though not a lot of uptake yet. I suspect that this approach to social search is more likely to get traction within an existing social network rather than a dedicated one, though it's possible that it could take off, most likely initially in specific communities.

The nub of how Aardvark works is by using your nominated topics, which can be input either by yourself or others. I entered topics of 'enterprise 2.0' and 'social networks' and others have tagged me with 'business' and 'social media'.

As such I was rather surprised when I received this email from Aardvark:

(Aardvark) Help someone with a question about *adult entertainment business*
Hi Ross,

Briana/20/F/.....,.. just asked a question I think you might be able to answer,

"What's the best way to learn how to be a stripper?"

To answer, just reply to this message, and I'll forward your email along to Briana.

As it happens I don't know the answer. So why did Aardvark think that I might know?

If it's because someone tagged me as an expert on 'business', then the matching algorithm is not very good - being tagged with 'business' doesn't make me an expert on any phrase that ends with the word business, be it adult entertainment business, sewage business, or weight loss business.

However it's possible that Aardvark trawled the web for content that I have written, and noted that I have co-authored an article on 'The Future of Adult Entertainment' (The article is in fact ranked #1 on Google for "future adult entertainment", suggesting great expertise in the topic. In fact this was written as a general futurist rather than a domain specialist so I'm afraid that's not true :-) ). This would indicate a far more sophisticated approach, but one which is beyond the scope of what Aardvark say they are doing.

I wonder which one of these methodologies identified me as a potential mentor to young strippers.

For the most current insights and trends in the living networks, follow @rossdawson on Twitter!

2 Comments

Anastasia Ashman said:

I've been tapped by Aardvark about 10 ten times, 8 of which have been totally off-key subjects. It seems people are using Aardvark instead of more expert channels to get answers to specific questions -- like, "What do I do if my best friend from highschool uses me for rides and then dumps me?" No idea what expertise category this relates to. Yesterday I got an off-color query about gloryholes in Istanbul. The subject line was *sex*. Not my professed speciality, Aardvark. So far, it's been a complete waste of my time.

October 24, 2009 1:49 AM

Alison said:

Ross, I'm sorry to hear you haven't been having the best experiences with Aardvark - although I must admit it does make a catchy blog post title... :)

Aardvark doesn't crawl the web for information about you. The questions we choose to send you are based on many different factors (included topics in your profile, social connections, availability, etc.), but as you've seen, our system is not yet perfect.

That said, we have a team that is constantly working to improve this system, and the more you use Aardvark the more Aardvark learns about you, so you should see questions getting more and more relevant in the future.

In response to Anastasia, I want to apologize for the inappropriate question! If you'd like you can help prevent these in the future by flagging them, which will notify the Aardvark team. We completely understand that very few people want to be pinged with these questions. We're in the process of adding measures that should help with this a lot.

We really appreciate this feedback from both of you, and would love to hear any other suggestions for how we can improve Aardvark - alison@aardvarkteam.com

- Alison @ Aardvark
http://twitter.com/AlisonatVark

October 26, 2009 1:52 PM

Ross Dawson is globally recognized as a leading futurist, entrepreneur, keynote speaker, strategy advisor, and bestselling author. He is Founding Chairman of four companies: professional services and venture firm Advanced Human Technologies, future and strategy consulting group Future Exploration Network, leading events firm The Insight Exchange, and influence ratings start-up Repyoot.

Ross is author most recently of Implementing Enterprise 2.0, the prescient Living Networks, which anticipated the social network revolution, and the Amazon.com bestseller Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships (click on the links for free chapter downloads). He is based in Sydney and San Francisco with his wife jewellery designer Victoria Buckley and two beautiful young daughters.