12 February 2010

Google to take-over ‘Social Search’ engine Aardvark

Google's social networking capabilities are once again set to expand. Following on from the release of Google Buzz, Google's very own social network, the Mopuntain View giant is now to take over Aardvark in a deal said to be worth around $50million (£32million), according to TechCrunch.

Aardvark, the original 'social search' engine, was established in 2007 in San Francisco by former Google employees. The concept was to use social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to tap into the knowledge of friends and friends-of-friends and create a search function with added friendliness to better serve the searcher.

This is not the first time Google has attempted to compete with question-and-answer sites such as Ask.com. In 2002 the search company launched Google Answers, which was later shut down in 2006 due to the "community's limited size". Yahoo! later launched its Yahoo! Answers site. Aardvark hoped to update the question-and-answer concept to make full use of the global obsession with social networking.

Ask.com is currently the market leader in the sector, with over 1million hits a day. Aardvark's average number of hits is just over 3150 hits with the majority being from mobile access, so theoretically as mobile internet uses increases exponentially so too will Aardvarks hits. Aardvark representatives put this trend down to the idea that users are looking for quick, straight to the point answers on their phones without having to hunt for them. The recent news that Facebook beat Google to the punch as the most visited site for smartphone users may have helped remind Google just how essential users find their social media fix too.

The deal, expected to be made official in the next few days, only confirms how seriously Google is taking its latest attempts at conquering the social networking industry.

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