Today I came across a web service called Aardvark, which one might define as a user-generated KGB; that is, it’s a community of users connected via web browsers, cell phones and instant messengers that define their own areas of expertise, and are automatically sent questions from other users that target those criteria. For example, earlier today I asked “What is a good, lightweight and free (open source preferred) FTP client for Windows?” and received 2 answers within a few minutes; one user recommended Mozilla FTP, and the other FileZilla. When the answers came in, I was notified via Google Talk on my Blackberry and PCs. Alternatively, I could have received notifications via SMS and email. Twitter notifications from the @vark account would be a nice touch, too.

The service is brilliant, and I really hope it gains popularity. The only real problem right now is the limited number of users participating (think Twitter back when it was “twttr”). On the other hand, as my buddy Tom pointed out, one has to wonder how scalable the platform behind it all is, and whether they’ll be able to meet the demand as the community grows. I wish them the best of luck with it.

If you’d like to try Aardvark, you can sign up using my referral link or from their site.

Finally got an invite to Brightkite tonight (thanks Jeff!), and I’m pretty damn impressed to say the least. The best way to describe Brightkite is something like a mash-up of Plazes, Twitxr and to some degree Twitter itself, though it’s much more of a companion to the former than it is a competitor.

Basically, you decide to broadcast that you are at some geographical location using your laptop or cellphone (i.e. The Starbucks on Green); you can see who else is there right now or has been in the recent past, and you can share photos and notes during your time there. It’s sort of an ad-hoc virtual community based around physical locations. The best thing? It all integrates with Twitter and FireEagle, so now your “I’m at Barnes and Noble” messages can actually have some useful metadata attached- who else is there? Where is that Barnes and Noble located? What does it’s interior look like?

So, it’s essentially a stalkers best friend, right? Well, luckily the Brightkite team was smart enough to impliment some decent privacy controls- you can define how much information you want to give out to the public, your friends, or your “trusted friends”.

I really love Brightkite; it’s not just a great idea, but their implementation is brilliant. The UI is responsive and sleek, and it doesn’t feel like a chore keeping it up to date, a problem I always had with Plazes. My only complaint is the lack of an API right now. I’d love to hook a certain GPS project of mine into this bad boy and have it automated some of the aspects. But, like all things 2.0, I’m sure they’re working on it.