Today I sent a letter to the Aardvark Support Team to request a copy of all my data before the service shuts down. I thought I would share that letter.
I was very disappointed to hear that Google is shutting you folks down. Your service is groundbreaking, for a number of reasons. And nobody (including Yahoo Answers) fills the niche that will be empty once you leave the market.
Admittedly, I believe the Aardvark community had some growth problems over the last six months or so, and that led me to use it much less often. For example, I found recently that a lot of users were answering that I could “Google it” or that my glib question about “the best ice-cream flavor” was an opinion question, which should not be asked. These users seem to have not read the FAQ for the site, where you clearly encouraged questions of all types. In fact, the few times I asked an easily-Googlable question, it was when my only Internet access was my phone, and a Google Chat with the Aardvark service was far more practical than trying to navigate the World Wide Web on a two-inch screen. No other service offers that type of seamless transition between communication channels. Your user-interactivity design was brilliant, and will hopefully not die along with the service!
I guess the best I could ask for at this point would be what was offered yesterday on your blog:
http://blog.vark.com/?p=379Would it be possible to get a data dump of the 180+ questions I have asked / answered over the last year and a half?
Thank you much for any help, and good luck to all of you…
Related articles
- The Killings Continue At Google: Aardvark Put Down (techcrunch.com)
- Google Discontinues Aardvark Amid Social Product Closures (mashable.com)
- Focusing on What Works, Google Shuts Down Aardvark (nytimes.com)
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